Downloads
Some of you may remember the Amazing Sanibel Race that Jo and a friend of ours put on in celebration of my birthday a couple of years ago. It was so much fun that we decided to do it again on our recent trip to Sanibel. This time the guest of honor was Jo’s Aunt Sue. She is a huge fan of The Amazing Race
We kicked it up a few notches this year, too, and came up with an awesome set of downloads for you to customize if you want to have your own The Amazing Race party! We also have tips on making your own clue box are hope to eventually come up with a mat design as well.
I think the most recognizable element of The Amazing Race that you can bring into your own race is the envelopes. Nothing says “I’m starting a new leg of the race” like tearing open that pull-strip on the envelope to see what’s inside. To make race-style envelopes, start with a white cardboard mailer that’s at least 4″ x 8″ so that the clues will fit inside. We used some 6″ x 8″ mailers
To decorate the mailers, you’ll first need to download our handy template and print one copy for each envelope.
Take your envelopes and cover the front of them with a good coat of glue stick (or spray adhesive). To make this step even easier, you could also just print the template right onto sticker paper and avoid the glue altogether!
Then stick the printed template on top and use some scissors to trim the excess.
Your envelopes are now ready to be stuffed with clues!
So now you need some clues for your Amazing Race party! Fortunately for you, I made a nice template to help you out with that. The template includes blank clues for all of the common types of clues featured on the show — Route Info, Detour, Road Block, and Fast Forward.
Download our Amazing Race Clues Template
Once you’ve downloaded our template, open it in Microsoft Word. Then click on the text for each clue and customize it with details for your party. Making the clues is so much fun. If you’re a fan of the show, you’ll know the style of writing used on the clues, which should help a lot. (If you want to see the actual clues we ended up using for our race, check out the link at the end of this post!)
Print the completed clues out on white cardstock and cut them out with scissors or a paper trimmer. Then you can just stick the clues into the envelopes.
Once your clues are complete, you can put them into a clue box that you can make with our Amazing Race clue box tutorial. It even has a download to make the flag extra easy!
Jo also made some custom buttons for the racers to wear, so that spectators could see that they were on an Amazing Race. These buttons were super easy to create with button blanks and yet another handy template that I designed just for this purpose!
Once you download the template and open it in Microsoft Word, just click where it says “Enter Event / Date Here” and edit the text so that it has your own event and date. This is a great way to customize the buttons! You could also put each racer’s name on the button, or just leave it blank if you want a generic design.
Now you’ve got everything you need for your own The Amazing Race party!
But you know Jo… she wanted just a little more. She decided that the race teams needed some way to identify themselves, so she picked up some inexpensive brightly-colored hats that the teams could wear. T-shirts or bandannas in bright colors would also be a great way to identify the teams.
The prizes for our race were Visa gift cards, which were sure to please the members of the winning team, no matter how young or old they were.
We thought we’d show you some pictures from our The Amazing Race party in Sanibel, which really show the fun that the teams had.
Here are some of the team members counting post office boxes at the Sanibel US Post Office, which was one of the Road Block tasks in our race. Everyone did surprisingly well with the counting and only one team had to count twice.
One of the other tasks in the race had the teams assemble some provided pieces of felt into a design that was shown on a photo. We did this task at Three Crafty Ladies, our favorite craft store on the island. They were pleased as punch to let us work on their table in the store.
The final leg of the race finished up with a task that required one team member to drink a milkshake from Cheeburger, Cheeburger as quickly as possible. Little Jo ended up doing this task for her team, and loved every minute of it, as you can clearly see!
If you’d like to see the clues that we came up with for our Sanibel version of The Amazing Race, here’s a downloadable Word doc with our customizations. If you happen to be in Sanibel, you can re-use our clues with hardly any changes. Our race had 4 legs and 7 clue envelopes, and I included a set-up guide at the end of the doc that tells you how to set it all up and administer this particular race.
Download our The Amazing Sanibel Race clues
If you use our templates or our Sanibel clues for your own The Amazing Race, please tell us about it in the comments. We’d love to hear from the racers out there!
To make your final pit stop more authentic, why not decorate it with a Travelocity Gnome? You also might want to hand out Amazing Race T-shirts to the winners!
UPDATE!
We held yet another The Amazing Race event in the summer of 2011 during Chica’s annual campout at the lake. With completely kid-friendly challenges and matching bandanas for all the teams, this was a great mini version of the race and the kids had a ball. Visit our Amazing Race party for kids post to get our downloadable clue template and see how all the challenges went.
177 comments so far:
I love the Amazing Race and I love this idea! Thank you for sharing.
(ps Saw this via One Pretty Thing)
We are planning an Amazing Race activity for our family reunion this week. These templates are just what we were looking for. Thanks so much for sharing!
So glad we could help, Melissa. Please let us know how it goes!
Thank you sooooo much for putting downloadable templates for this ! I am using it in my HS World Literature Class where my Theme for the year is “The Amazing Race”
How fun, Kim-Ling! We’re glad we could help and we would love to hear all about your race afterwards
I’m so excited. My BFF turns 50 this year and has always wanted to be on the Amazing Race so we are surprising her with the Amazing Race thru the Decades. We have friends from all over the country coming in that she doesn’t know about just to participate. We will cap the day off with a BD Party Celebrating each of the 5 decades of her birth. Can’t wait to see her face when she sees how authentic the clues and envelopes will look. Thanks so much for making it easier.
Tricia, you are such a great friend for doing this for her! We love the idea of it being a race through time. Please share some of your party pictures with us afterwards!
I am planning an Amazing Race birthday party for my son’s 9th birthday. It is our favorite show! These templates are EXACTLY what I have been looking for!!! Thank you so much. We live in Orlando and I am trying to plan it around Disney World. Any suggestions from all you experts would be great
You are absolutely amazing for sharing! We have known since mid season of AR 16 that for our sons 10th birthday in September we would be doing the Amazing Race. Afterall, he is amazing and it has been a race to 10 – a quick one!
I googled Amazing Race Invite and found you.
You and what you have done is EXACTLY what I was going to do! But now that you have made it so easy for me, I can spend time putting his favorite things and places in the race and not worrying about how I am going to make it look authentic. You have saved me a ton of stress and I appreciate it SOOOOOOOO much:)
That’s wonderful to hear, Erin! Please come back and tell us all about the party afterwards, and we hope you enjoy the rest of our site as well
Fantastic templates! I am having an Amazing Mall Race party for my daughter’s 12 birthday.
Thanks so much for sharing the templates you made! My Girl Scout Service Unit is having an Amazing Race theme for our Camporee this year, and everything you made is awesome! I’ve passed it along to the event director, who I am sure will be thrilled!
Cassy and Dariti, we’re so glad we could help. Please come back and tell us how your parties go
OH. MY. GOD. I have been planning and researching and planning and thinking and watching AR reruns and HOLY COW! I hit pay dirt with this information! My fiance and I are getting married….on our TENTH anniversary of being together and wanted to do something a little off the beaten path. Our “rehearsal dinner” night will be an amazing race to remember … now that I have found your site! One question….about how long did it take for your participants to complete the race?
Wow, thanks again! Looks like this site is popular and you’ve pleased a LOT of people with this info
Meghan, we think that’s a great way to have fun for your rehearsal dinner, and we’re glad our templates are going to help you! Our race took about 2-3 hours, but of course the time will depend on what tasks you have in your race. Please let us know how it goes
Chica, That is perfect! I have a LOT of ideas, now it’s time to whittle it down to just a few. I can’t thank you enough for the details you included (and the templates are awesome!). What a huge help this will be to us! I will certainly let you know how it goes. Hopefully I will have pictures up on my website after the wedding. I’ll keep you posted
You’re quite welcome, Meghan. Can’t wait to hear details!
Hi Chica and Jo!
I’m a teacher in Western Australia and to end off the term and to integrate my maths and english lesson, I am going to have my class participate in The Amazing Race. You have cut out my time in making the templates!
Thanks once again for your help!!
Jason
What a great way to make learning fun, Jason. We’re glad to have saved you some time, and we’d love to hear how your race goes!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE TEMPLATES!!!!!!!! I am planning my daughter’s 10th birthday party and was a little overwhelmed until I came upon your website. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!
Thanks for the great ideas and templates. My five sisters and I go away together every 18 months or so and this gathering we have planned a cruise and wanted to do an Amazing Race as one of our activities. Since we range in age from 54-68, we have to be somewhat creative in our challenges, but we are game! I’ll let you know how it turns out. Thanks! Laurie
Laurie, doing a race on a cruise ship would be a lot of fun! Please tell us all the details when you return!
It helped so much to have the templates!!! Thank YOU!!!
Hey, Chica and Jo!
I’m gonna create É‘ Race like this, around the city.
Thank you so much for the template ideas and the clue picture of course!!
But I wanna ask, do you have the template for the Yield board and how’s about the back of the clue envelope, leave them plain? Thanks É‘ lotttaaa!!!
-Borgey-
Hi Borgey. We’re happy we could help with supplies for your race. Sorry, but we don’t have a yield board. We left the backs of the envelopes plain, but you could cover them with yellow paper if you wanted to. Have fun on your race and let us know how it goes!
Okay, maybe I’ll decorate them with my team. But, if there’s É‘ template for the clue card with the instruction, how about the clue card before the instruction? Do you have them?
Thankyouu!
-Borgey-
Borgey, there are two different versions of the clue templates on our post. The main one (in the Downloads box at the top of the page) is blank, and you can enter your own instructions. Then at the bottom of the post, we provided a filled-in version with our specific Sanibel clues already in it.
Chica, do you have the cover of the clue? Like a Route Info cardstock, covering the clue?
Can I edit the envelope, I wanna add the “City Game” under it.
I wanna ask, how about that pit stop mat and how about the cluebox? Thanks a lot!
Sorry, Borgey, but we haven’t created the extra items you’ve mentioned. Everything we’ve got is here in this post
We might make more in the future, though, so keep an eye on our site!
Love this. Thanks for all the great tips and downloads!! Every year our couples ministry at church do a scavenger hunt and this year we are wanting to do something a little different. The husbands always compete againts their wives instead of couples competing against each other. That we are going to keep the same. It makes it more fun when doing as a large group. The last clue will bring us all to the same location for our end of challenge meal. Who knows we may have it where the men sing for their supper and the women…watch….lol
I am a teacher in a Storyline school and I did a 9 week “Amazing Race” Storyline with my 2/3 class of 25 students. We “traveled” to 8 different countries and even went 3 hours away to our zoo for our final challenge. I really appreciated having some templates for clues, buttons, and envelopes. Thanks a bunch!
What a clever idea, Jennifer. I’m sure your students learned a lot from your creative teaching method. Glad our templates could help you out
Hey .. tnx for the idea .. i’m a massive fan of the amazing race and me and my friends were thinking of doing this in our town .. now it will be possible ! thanks so much !!!
Gavin, glad to help. Let us know how it turns out!
Great site and thank you for your Amazing Race guide. My daughter asked me if I would put together one of my famous Scavenger Hunts for her 18th birthday. But your outline and templates have convinced me that we need to do an Amazing Race party instead.
My only question though is, is there a problem with everyone starting at the same place at the same time? Does everyone end up following each other?
Jerry, we had some choices built in to our race legs (via Detours) so not everyone went the same way and did the same thing. If you start everybody off with options, that should help keep them from following each other around from task to task. Good luck with the party, and we’d love to hear how it goes!
THANK YOU! Our kids love TAR and we are surprising them with a trip for Christmas and are using TAR clues for them to figure out what to do on each (small) leg of the trip. The templates are great and a source for the pull-tab envelopes was invaluable.
MA, what a great idea for making a trip even more exciting. Have a Merry Christmas and safe travels!
Hey, Chica and Jo, sorry for bothering u again..
I wanna know, how’§ the mat that you used in the Race? And, from the Race that you’ve made, how long is the time for every leg? Teams do depart based on the time arrived right? How long is the pit-stop break? I wanna ask for your suggestions. Do you have Yahoo messenger or something? Kthanks! Lots of love! <3
And is it okay, if we run the Race without the license from The Amazing Race and stick The Amazing Race envelope template? Kthanks!
)
Borgey, you can use the printables and run a race without the license as long as you are using it for your personal use and are not charging people to participate. We didn’t design a mat for the race. The time for every leg varied widely but we tried to keep it at about 30 minutes a leg. To make the competition a bit more fair, we had teams depart with only a few minutes lead time in the order they arrived. We wanted to make it fun for everyone. We didn’t have a pit stop break. I hope these answers help! Have a great Race!
How many legs are there in your Race? Do you race in one day? How bout the cluebox? There are a Detour and a Roadblock in each leg right?
Hey, Chica and Jo, this rocks!
But, I wonder do you use any documenation / recording stufs? How many teams do race? This sounds great!!
Borgey, you can do the race however you like. Our race was very specific to our group and locale, but you can make yours however you like, with as many Detours and Roadblocks as you want, and for as long as you want
Kathee, thanks! We kept our race pretty informal and didn’t record any video. We had three teams, but you can use as many or as few as you want, and customize the race to your own situation.
Hehe, thankyou Chica! Smooch
I wanna ask, how people will interested in joining the Race that my team produced?
hey .. can somebody give me a set of clues for an area with a public park, a church, a supermarket in town .. pls need some help ..
It’s amazing….. How do u make this all stuff?
You guys are awesome!!! Thanks so much for sharing!! I am so excited to have such an awesome starting point!!
Wow how great are you to share this with others – - you have made my 10 year old very happy as he is after a party just like this. The templates are excellent. Thank you for sharing.
You’re very welcome, Leanne. We’d love to hear how your son’s party comes out!
Thanks for doing this up!! am trying to do an amazing missionary race for my church…
some of this will come in handy!! Thanks a million! God Bless!
You guys are awesome, have just planned an Amazing Race party for my daughter’s 8th birthday and everything I need is right here!
That’s wonderful to hear, Phil! Let us know how the party goes.
Wow! This is amazing! I know that you probably dont have any invitation templates but if you have any ideas for invitations that would be great! Thanks!
-Carly
Thanks, Carly! You could easily adapt the clue template by filling in party invitation information and then delivering it in a decorated envelope.
Wow! thanks for the great ideas! You have saved this non-so-crafty mom. My son’s birthday is gonna rock!
WOW! is all i have to say! Thanks to your templates, I was inspired to do The Most Amazing Race in Tampa for my “rehearsal dinner” the night before my wedding! WHAT A FREAKING GREAT TIME for our guests!!! We ended up having around 40+ people in teams of 4 travel around Tampa doing challenges, tasks and donations to our favorite charities! WHAT FUN! It took months of planning, but thanks to your site, I was REALLY inspired to push it to the next level for our wedding weekend! Thanks for the templates, ideas and inspiration
….still waiting on our guests to send pictures!
Meghan, we’re thrilled to hear about your enormously successful party! If you have any clue examples or photos to share, I’m sure our readers would love to see them as much as we would. Congratulations on your wedding, too
Wow, thank you so much for sharing all this great stuff. We’ve done The Amazing Race 2 years in a row at my school and we made up our own templates, but they don’t even begin to compare with what you have available here. We’re getting ready to begin our 3rd annual race and I can’t wait to show everyone what I found on your website! Thanks!
Yay, Melody! Hopefully this year will be the best yet
Thanks for the amazing race clue templates, they were just what we were looking for!
Thank you soooo much for the Amazing Race templates! That is exactly what I needed to do the race for our church this Saturday. I can not thank you enough!
Stephanie, so glad we could help! Let us know how your race goes
I’m having an AR birthday party for my 13 yo daughter this friday! Plans are coming together very well! Did you use a clue box or did you have someone at each stop giving out clues? We are really excited
Thanks for all your hard work. It has made it so much easier for us to tackle!
Lisa, I was actually at each stop to hand out the clues and enjoy the fun that the ones doing the race were having. You could have clue boxes as well though. We have been thinking about designing an example using a mailbox and a post. I hope the party goes well!
I think that may be the most efficient way, too. Thanks!
Thank you very much for the templates, I am a children’s party nut, all the parents wait to see how I will top the year before and I think with your awesome templates it will be perfect. I’ve been planning my daughter’s 12th b’day AR for 3 months, I see lots of people asking about clue boxes. I have used cereal boxes cut to have a flip top lid and painted yellow then attached them to garden stakes as they only need to be very temporary and not carry alot of weight. I’m so looking forward to my daughter’s party. Thanks again
What a great idea to use cereal boxes, Keiran! Thanks for sharing and good luck with your daughter’s party
Ran across your website looking for Amazing Race material. I am planning to use the AR format instead of the usual egg hunt. My 3 grandchildren will have a lot of fun. Thanks for all the great ideas!
If you want to check out how my Amazing Race turned out feel free to go to my youtube page and click on Amazing Race. Thanks again!
youtube.com/user/sdglass41275
Oh my goodness, Stephanie, that is fantastic!! Our buttons and clue templates look perfect in your very authentic race. I’m jealous that you had enough helpers to even have a “film crew” with each team and plenty of people at each stop. The clues and challenges were awesome, too. Thanks so much for sharing this video with us
Hi, I am co-organizing “The Amazing Race” for our church youth group. I haven’t watched the show much and wondering if you could give me some clarification re the Amazing Race Clues template – I mean, did you just use one out of the four options per clue? Also, I see that it says website viewers can go to the bottom of your website to see the actual clues you used, but I am unable to find them – could you help me with that site please? Thanks so much! Your website looks great and is a lot of help!
Hi Tracy! Each task on the Amazing Race TV show is of a type (roadblock, detour, etc), so we provided templates for each type of clue. You pick which type to use for each task depending on what the task is. You should have a good mix of them throughout your race. Hopefully, one of the other people organizing the event with you has seen the show and can offer some advice. If not, you may want to watch an episode or two online.
The sample of the actual clues we used in our Sanibel Amazing Race is at the bottom of the project article, not the bottom of the whole site. That might be why you had a hard time finding it. Here’s a direct link to make it easier on you: Download our The Amazing Sanibel Race clues.
Enjoy the race and welcome to our site!
Hi, having a last min. AR party for my daughter 12th birthday. After I’ve been cleaning house all day and so tired I decided to look up ideas and came across your site so greatful for the temp. All I have to do is print out and figure out clues for them to play. Challenge is I have to keep it in the neighborhood, any ideas for clues? Again, thank you for posting templates for busy moms like me…
Hi Liz! It’s definitely possible to come up with AR tasks that will keep the kids nearby. Here are a few ideas I can think of that are pretty typical of the types of real tasks performed on the show:
1) have the teams eat a plate of food (pie, ice cream, chips, etc)
2) memorize a popular song or dance or create a new one and perform it for a judge
3) count a large number of items, such as bricks, rocks, straws, jellybeans, etc
4) paint and/or assemble an item (think puzzles, paper airplanes, etc)
5) search through a large number of items for one marked in a special way
Hope those ideas help!
Thank you so much!!!!! I had planned an amazing race for my Girl Guide group and your templates were the perfect touch!!!!! I know the girls will love the authentic looking clues!
This is SOOOOOOOOO helpful for my son’s 8th birthday! Can’t wait to have the group of boys racing around the beach getting things done and winding up at our favorite pizza place and then ice cream later on!
I am organising my mums surprise birthday and decided to plan an AR party. Your site and templates are amazing it has helped me immensley and the templates are just perfect!! Thank you
What a fun surprise, Kay! We’d love to hear how the party went, so come back and let us know
Thankyou SOOOOOO much! i am trying to plan a 13th birthday party and these have helped me a lot! One question, what do you suggest i do about invitations?
JB, so glad we could help! Our suggestion for invitations would be to customize the clue templates with party information and put them into a tear-off envelope with the design, just like you would with the clues. That will really set the expectation level for the guests!
I am so glad I found your site, I am planning my daughter’s sweet 16 party and lets just say she is not your typical girly girl so this idea is perfect for her and her friends especially the drinking something gross and smelly! Thanks for posting the templates they will work perfectly.
Hi there!! Thank you SO MUCH for these templates! They’re helping me out lots… Check out my event.
Thanks again.
Chelsea, we’re glad we could help. I checked out your site but I don’t see any photos yet. Let us know after the event so we can look again!
I don’t usually comment on sites but I felt compelled to respond to yours. I want to thank you for all the info on your site regarding the Amazing Race. I recently had an Amazing Race for my wife’s 40th birthday and it was a huge success!! People can’t stop talking about it and how fun it was. I owe you a huge thanks as your site helped me out greatly and made my wife’s birthday, an event to remember. Thank you again
Bill, we are so glad you took the time to comment. Stories like yours are what keep us inspired to continue creating fun projects for our readers! Tell your wife Happy Birthday for us
Thank you, thank you, thank you for having downloads available.
I’m planning a 50th birthday party for my best friend and this will save me so much time and aggravation. Love all the little details and ideas.
Thanks so much for your ideas and the downloads. I found similar items on another site, but they are charging for them. How kind of you to make them available for free.
I work in a out of school hours care centre and we are doing the amazing race with all our children, thankyou so so much for sharing these ideas and templates, has made my job a whole lot easier
Kristy, you’re quite welcome. We’d love to see photos and/or hear how your event goes!
Thank you so much! You are so generous sharing your templates from your Amazing Race idea.
I was creating my own when I came upon the ones you put up to share. It takes so much time to make this. I am planning my child’s 16th and wanted to make it exciting. It will be at Epcot in Fl. I will let you know how it comes out. Thanks Again!)
Charleen, we can’t wait to hear about it!
Hi Chica and Jo!
I must be lame and doing something wrong. I can only get the blue route info clues to come up (not the red, green or yellow. Do I need to use a certain browser? Sorry to bother you! Thanks!
Hi Linda. Are you trying to open this Clue Template, which is in Microsoft Word format? If so, a .doc file should open that has four pages, and each page has a different type of clue card on it. Or maybe if you don’t have Word on your computer, it might be trying to open up the document in something else that won’t let you see the other pages?
Thank you so much for sharing everything! We are in Zimbabwe, Africa and I’m planning an Amazing Race for my 13 year old son – ofcourse I am having to tweak it to suit Africa! Thanks so much!!
Hi Chicka and Jo,
The Amazing 16th Birthday Race was AWESOME! I had a successful group of 8 teens in teens of two. I used detours and roadblocks and had them document with pictures and videos. Since I was the host and only adult I created enough legs in between pit stops to be everywhere, exhausting but worth it. The temp. did not help (101 degrees). I collected all the pictures and video footage plus the one I took running around and created an AWESOME video! I wish there was a way for me to share the video with you. You would love it, sound track and all. If there is a way let me know.
Thanks so much again!)
Charleen, that sounds so great! I’ll bet the teens had a fantastic time playing, and I’m sure it was worth all your hard work to pull it together for them. We would absolutely love to see the video, of course. It’s probably too big of a file to email to us, but if it’s not very long, perhaps you can post it to YouTube?
Thank you for sharing the templates!
Hi Chica, I actually might try to post it to you tube thanks. I will keep you informed.
After more than 5 months of planning, my daughter’s Sea Cadet corps did their Amazing Race weekend. Thirty-six kids, four legs, 23 clues and loads of fun. Thanks for the templates!!!!
The corps website has loads of photos if you are interested!!!
http://www.niagaradrummond.com/the-amazing-race–cadet-style.html
Shana, what a great event! I thoroughly enjoyed looking through your pictures, and it is clear you put a lot of time and effort into organizing and planning your race. We’re so happy that our templates helped you out. Thanks for sharing the details!
Thank you so much for the templates!I am part of a group that puts on events for our peers in the dorms of our university and we decided for our November event to do the amazing race… I’m in charge of all the clue making so finding this site was a God-send! We will be racing this Sunday and we hope to get 7 teams of 2 with six tasks to complete
Elena, I’m so glad we could help! Let us know how your race goes.
You are heaven sent! You’re templates were very helpful!
Thank you for sharing it =)
Yay!
Thanks you so much for sharing Amazing Race templates, etc. It sure cut down on the planning end of it. We did a 16th birthday party, four cars, 16 kids plus a driver that was just that. The kids had to direct driver to each place they wanted to go. It was hysterical because they knew where they wanted to be but didn’t know street names, N-S-E or W. We had taken all cell phones and electrical devices from them at the door and GPS system in car was not an option to use. A two hour race ended up going four hours but they sure had fun doing it. 16 teenagers had a ball, even in cold weather. Would love to plan one in summer in a park where we wouldn’t have to use cars. Your site is great!
Sounds like a great time, Dawn! So glad the kids enjoyed the Amazing Race.
Thanks for the templates. Used this as a fun way to have my companies employees learn about benefits. This is more interactive and fun than a power point presentation.
What a clever idea, Jessica! It must be great to have an HR department that cares enough to come up with such creative ideas
That’s cool! But, do you mind creating a “Speed Bump” template?
Thanks
Thank you so much for your site and free templates! You are awesome! My 14 year old daughter is having her amazing race for her birthday party this april. You made my planning so easy! Thanks so much!
So glad we could help with your daughter’s party, Billie. If you’ve got any good task ideas to share, we and our readers would love to hear them!
Thanks so much for sharing – love your templates and am using them now – we are having an Amazing Race birthday party tomorrow – will let you know how it goes!
I nearly burst into tears when I found this website! I’m the artsy-craftsy type, and have spent too much time trying to mimic TAR envelopes and clue cards. That’s all gone now, thanks to you!
Planning an Amazing Race for a graduating high school class of 60, being held first weekend of May. These kids are going to have a guaranteed BLAST!
Thanks again for offering your templates free. It’s the little things that people notice – and I love that I’m not the only one who goes above and beyond. Y’all ROCK!
AugustSeven, we’re so happy that we made your job easier! We’re glad you found us and hope you stick around to enjoy more of our project ideas. Let us know how your race goes, and if you have any task ideas to share, our readers love to hear them!
I am busy planning my 30th and I am SUPER EXCITED about this theme! Anyone got some GREAT IDEAS for a group of adults let me know
Task Ideas – I’m sitting at 10 so far, and don’t mind at all to share them! Where? HERE? In this box?!
If you can summarize your tasks and list them here as a comment, that would be great!
Detour: FISH or CUT BAIT
FISH: fishing pole with reel/line/hook. Object is to “land” (pop) 3 fish (inflated balloons tied to a board). CUT BAIT: reach into a dirty, grungy cooler and pull out small container marked ‘live bait’. Person has to eat what’s inside. Surprise! It’s just sushi.
Detour: SURF or TURF
Both parts are similar in design. Have to fill a small vessel to the mark. SURF: fill it with water, using only a small plastic syringe. TURF: fill it with sand, using only small plastic spoon. BIG trick: sand and water are not close by. Doing this at a home, and water/sand will be in backyard. Vessel will be on a table in driveway or front yard.
Detour: THE LIBRARY CAPER
(Our public library is next to the city park). Once in the library after Route Info card, teams must locate specific reference book (one that’s never checked out so it’ll always be there), and find a cipher key; read the decoded clue to find a bookshelf. Envelope taped to underside of shelf contains clue to find last book that gives a bit of history on the park’s Indian mounds. Find the right mound and the next clue. (“Search the area for the person who could help you best.” )Volunteer nearby with Roadblock envelope.
ROADBLOCK: Swing Batta Batta
On marked off little league baseball field, need 3 ball bats. 1 on home, 1 at 1st and one at 3rd. Forehead to ball bat, spin 10 times and run (HA!) to first. Spin again, run to 3rd. Spin again and run to home. At home, pick up cup and saucer filled with water and walk it to the volunteer sitting where 2nd base would be. Complete it and get the next clue. ** BE SURE TO VIDEOTAPE THIS LEG ESPECIALLY **
Those are great task ideas, AugustSeven. Thanks for sharing!
DERBY DAY DETOUR:
At each stop, teams will be given a key to keep with them until used later. This is where they’ll use the key. After Route Info and clue to find a local self storage business, they will have to try all the keys they’ve collected to unlock one specific unit. In the unit will be a broomstick and another clue. Clue is to go to local mall, and find the next route marker.
At one end of the mall, we will have a table set up in a corner. On the table: cotton batting, muslin material, string, yarn, needle and thread.
Each team will have to assemble a stick pony (completed one shown for guide) and gallop (not run!) to a designated point in the mall (food court), turn around and head back to the finish line (table). Complete the task and receive next clue. Must bring the pony to the FINAL pit stop (the party location).
Detour: CANNONBALLS or WATERFALLS
We have a very large cemetery in our Tri-State (OH-KY-WV) area, with graves as far back as the War of 1812.
CANNONBALLS: Find all the cannons, and count the number of cannon balls. Go back to a specific cannon and, using that number, take that many steps due SOUTH to so-and-so grave. [Behind this grave will be a cammoflauged container]. From the clue, need to take the provided tutu and find the mausoleum of the murdered ballerina. Once there, they have to strike a ballet pose and snap a picture on their cell phone camera. Return the tutu and get the next clue.
WATERFALLS:
One street beyond the cemetery entrance bridge is an old cement plant. It’s been dismantled and condemned, but there is a stream that runs behind it. Beyond one wall, there is a very beautiful, mosaic tiled wall that the stream water runs over and into a shallow pool.
The clue leads them to the cement plant, where they have to find the mosaic wall. Someone will get wet feet or arms; beneath the waterfall will be a plastic bottle, weighted down, with another clue inside.
This is great- all of it, including the comments! So not only thanks to Chica and Jo, but to AugustSeven as well!!! (LOVE that “Cannonballs” detour.)
I love the amazing race, and I love the party stuff. The downdoads are very handy!
Can you or Jo make an Amazing race survival kit, like what you will need if you were going to be on the show?
Thanks,
Carmine
Carmine, we’re glad you like our party stuff. As for a survival kit, I think about the only things the racers really have with them are a backpack, clothes for all weather, headlamps, and a watch. Not sure what else to include!
I am making ‘Racer kits’ for the teams.
We are providing:
- A small spiral-top notebook (3/$1)
- An ink pen AND a mechanical pencil
- A Sharpie marker (use to write name on the poker chip they get for completing each task – later to be put in bucket and drawn out for prizes at end of the night)
- A color chart (tailored to each group of teams so they know which color-coded clue to grab next)
- One small toy compass ($1/ea)
- Packets of Wet Ones handiwipes
- 3 feet of yarn (used to assemble stick pony for gallop through local mall)
- Maps of the area
We opted not to go with disposable cameras. It would be nice for the hostess to have copies of the pictures of her friends as they did their tasks, but with everyone having cell phones with cameras, they will use those instead. If the hostess wants copies, she’ll have to have her friends text them to her! Besides, don’t most disposable cameras get thrown into a drawer after an event and not developed for months (sometimes years) later?
We’re providing bottled water at each new route marker.
Sorry this is so long! I didn’t mean to dominate.
HAVE FUN!!
AugustSeven, thanks for sharing all your tips and ideas!
Thanks for the templates! We’re racing in two days and now it the race will even look the part. Thank you!
Hi. I’m Lachlan and I’m 12 years old. I’ve been thinking about making an Amazing Race for a while now. I always make scavenger hunts for neighbours, friends and siblings around the house and street. But now I can create a full on Amazing Race! Thanks alot!
Lachlan, you sound like a fun neighbor to have. Thanks for saying hi, and we hope you enjoy hosting your own Amazing Race. Let us know how it goes!
Fantastic ideas, thanks a lot. Im looking to make my daughter’s 10th birthday party memorable for everyone. We live by the beach & there’s lots of restaurants, a lifeguard tower, shower rooms, a pagoda to climb upto, a basketball court, a kiddies play area with slides, seems like the kids will be busy scrambling around completing their challenges & finding their clues, my head is filled with more ideas than i can type right now, thanks again
Ruy, that sounds like a plentiful set of ideas and locations. Hope your daughter’s birthday is the best. We’d love to hear about some of your most successful race tasks if you want to come back afterwards and share!
Just wanted to say thank you so much for the great ideas. My son is turning 10 in November so we have heaps of time to plan and I’ve been inspired by your website. Also – thanks for the printables – it will make it all look just like the show!
WOW! Soooo happy to find these templates. Thank you so much. we are planning a Service Amazing Race for the youth in our church and I really wanted it to feel authentic so this is fantastic! Thank you again. Love it.
So glad we could help, Tina!
Thanks so much for providing these templates. Using them for my church teen ministry this week. I really hope they have fun with this activity.
Thank you for sharing your ideas. I’m using the Amazing Race idea with my freshmen students as a way to engage them with learning math and science. Appreciate it!
Great idea, Heidi. Glad we could help you inspire your students!
thanks so much for sharimg it looks like alot of fun
Thanks for all the free stuff! My Women’s Ministry Team L.I.F.T. (Ladies in Faith Together) are organizing an Amazing Race for our kick off event in October in Brantford, Ontario. We are using canoes to cross the Grand River, making them feed each other baby food in the local mall’s food court (while wearing a bib) and many other fun filled tasks. Your site will help us sooooo much!
Amalia, it sounds like you are going all out! I love that you’ve managed to work in fairly complex tasks like paddling canoes and going to the mall. Have a great race, and we’re glad we could help!
This is …amazing! I was sitting here trying to plan an Amazing Race for our Pastoral Staff and wives (30 total) for our staff retreat in 2 weeks….on SANIBEL ISLAND!! (We live in Ft Myers) SO SO glad I found your site!! WOW…I think we will be able to use most of it….AS IS!! WOOHOO!! I haven’t read through every detail yet, but let me ask you a few key questions.
1. How long from start to finish did this take? We have a tight schedule that we need to stick to so I have a designated time alotted…I think 2 hours. (A few clues seem like there is no way for that to work ie. making it out to the Bubble room and back)
2. Not sure how it works in order…Do they do the “route” items first and then the “clues” and “roadblocks”? I read the administrator sheet. Maybe i need to re-read it. Do all teams start together and then come in in turns to the pit stop when done? Then do they all wait till all teams have come in to the pit stop and start the next leg together? Or do the winners get a head start or extra points or anything? Is it first team to finish? First team with a certain amt of points?
3. We have an age rage of 20s to 70s Will all be able to keep up/enjoy?
Thanks SO much for hours and hours of saved time by finding this. Let me know any answers that can help and any Sanibel specific advise ie: talking with the owners of places.
Lisa, that’s so great that you are going to do a race in Sanibel, and we’re happy you will be able to use most of our stuff as-is. We don’t remember how long it took us to do the race, but with a timeframe of 2 hours, you’ll definitely need to cut out some of the longer tasks. As for your questions about order, we handed out all clues for each leg at once to all teams, and they met up at each pit stop before starting again. You can adjust the rules however you like to work best with your group. If you feel that some of the older folks in your group might have a hard time with some of the tasks, just modify them or leave them out. Have fun and let us know how it goes!
thank you for sharing. could you please share the invite template?
Durriya, we don’t have a specific invitation template, but our suggestion would be to customize the clue templates with party information and put them into a tear-off envelope with the design, just like you would with the clues. That will really set the expectation level for the guests!
My husband and I are going to dress up as an Amazing Race team for Halloween and I was looking for a template for the clues. Being on the show has always been a dream of mine. This site was awesome at finding just what I need. Where did you find the shirts?
Thank you so much!
Sarah, what a fun costume idea, and we’re thrilled we could help. I just realized that the link in the post to the T-shirts wasn’t working, so I’ve fixed it. Just click the link or the image and you’ll see a variety of Amazing Race shirts.
Thank you! Thank you ladies! My husband and I are also going as Amazing Racers for Halloween and are huge fans of the show and wanted to be as authentic as possible! Thank you for taking all the time your probably did to come up with such great stuff! Am now following you on Pinterest!
Wonderful, Sandy! Happy to have you as a fan
Thank you so much! What is your name on Pinterest so I can follow too!
Sarah
Sarah, our Pinterest board is here: http://pinterest.com/chicaandjo/
Hi. I am planning our Christmas party this year and we’re planning to do an Amazing Race here in Suva, Fiji Islands. I have been looking for weeks for ideas and am so glad to come across your site today (via pinterest). Will be doing it on the 8th of December and will email you link of photos. Thank you thank you thank you.
Brodie, I’m so glad we could help! Fiji is one of my dream vacation spots… too bad I can’t come out and help you with the race! Can’t wait to see your photos.
My family and friends get together every season for the finale and I used the clue templates for our clues which inside has a clue with the a country that the teams visited during the season. The people who get a clue must cook a dish from that country and bring it to the finale. Last season I had received Azerbaijan. I just want to say thank you and how amazing the clues turned out. Thank you!!!!
Gavin, that’s a wonderful idea! Thanks for sharing it.
This stuff is all so awesome! I am actually a Program Director for a Cub Scout camp and one of our camp themes this next year is The Amazing Race. I am so Happy I came across your website for all these great ideas! Thank you so much!!
So glad we could help you out, Brandon! We’d love to hear how your event goes.
I am planning an Amazing (Jingle Bell) Race with my Girl Scout Troop for a Christmas Party Event. This is such a wonderful site to use! Thank you for sharing this.
What a fun idea, Lori! We’d love to hear how the event goes.
So excited, we are doing the amazing race for our 5th grade winter party tomorrow! The teachers & kids are stoked about it! Thanks for all your hard work, y’all rock!
Sounds awesome, Shannan. Let us know how it goes!
Chica, I noticed a comment regarding a race through the decades for a 50th birthday. I am turning 50 this year, that would be awesome, can Tricia or you help with clues and ideas. I would love that.
Gretchen, that sounds like a fun idea! Perhaps you can focus on the popular music, clothes, or leaders of each decade and build clues from there? For example, contestants could “do the twist” to Chubby Checker’s song or dress in 70s hippie clothes. Or perhaps an eating challenge using some of the past US presidents’ favorite snacks? (Reagan liked jelly beans, Carter liked peanuts, etc…) We would love to hear how your race turns out!
I LOVE this idea. I am putting on the supervisor retreat for my company and we want to do this exact race but I wasnt sure how to put it all together. How did you go about getting the shop owners involved in letting you use their space and be involved in the race?
Joy, we just stopped in and talked to the shop owners ahead of time and they happily agreed!
Hi~ My school is planning a family literacy night and we are interested in an “Amazing Race” theme. I was wondering is you would share some possible ideas. I’ve never watched the television series so I’m struggling with ideas. The focus will be on literacy and managing a lot of families. Any suggestions would be so very much appreciated. Thanks~Dina
Dina, that sounds like a fun theme for your event. I would strongly suggest watching a few episodes of the show in order to be inspired, and so that you’re able to keep your challenges as true to the show as possible (otherwise the real fans in your crowd will be disappointed). For tasks with a literacy theme, you could have people read through books to find the fifth word on each of a handful of specific pages, perhaps to then unscramble the words into a common phrase? Or maybe have people sort books by author alphabetically? I’ll bet your school librarian will be a great source of ideas!
Hi – thanks for the great ideas and the wonderful template(s). I’m planning an Amazing race party for my daughter. Had a problem when I try to print the template and was wondering if you could help me. I downloaded the word document and put my text in the clue template, however, when I print it, it comes out blank without any text – am I doing something wrong?
VJ, I’m not sure what could be going wrong. Are you sure that the text you’re entering is still black and that your printer’s ink cartridge isn’t running low on any of the colors? Does the colored clue header print okay, as well as the black outline around the clue? Perhaps try printing a page of the DOC without making any changes, to make sure that the default “Enter your clue details here” text prints okay.
Hi!
Thank you so much.:)
Thank you so much for the templates. We are going to have a class reunion and I wanted an ‘Amazing Race’ theme wherein every challenge has a corresponding memory from the past. You made my day complete.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! Last year we did one (http://michaelandmeilani.blogspot.com/2012/03/truly-amazing-date-2012.html) and I just didn’t have time to make authentic looking clues and such. THANK YOU FOR SHARING!
Using this idea for a prom “Amazing Race” day idea. Thanks so much!
MeiLani, you’ve got some great task ideas in that post. Fellow readers looking for ideas should take a look!
Great work! This will give me some ideas for our family reunion this Aug. Thanks for sharing. The templates will be very useful.
simply awesome…thanks for sharing….i am doing this for a couple kitty of ours..frnds r soo looking forward to this