Make the whole city your escape room with our guide to the best mystery scavenger hunts in London. These self-guided themed puzzle-solving tours are a fun, convenient and affordable way to explore London as a visitor or a local, and perfect for groups.
Getting involved is easy. Simply grab a fellow adventurer (or several), choose the themed tour that you want to tackle, and the time and date you want to play. Once you have registered and started the game, a series of clues and puzzles will be sent to your phone; solve them to find out your next stop. Longer tours have a series of breaks built in so you can stop for refreshments.
Gourmaze
In teams of 2-6 people, get your crew together and either compete against each other in pairs or band together as one team and race against the clock to be top of the leaderboard. Clues will lead you to a series of tasty treats along the way, which are included in the ticket price. The timer is paused when you stop to eat, so you can enjoy the food part of the tour as much as the puzzles.
Once booked, it is simple to log in and reschedule your booking if you need to. This is free up until 5pm the day before your booking; later than this and there is a 15% charge, as food will have been arranged.
You can choose the food theme for your tour:
- The Taco Trade
- The Sweet Escape
- Talisman Treats
- The Time Traveller’s Space Bytes
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Length of tour: Allow around an hour
Area/s: Shoreditch, Mayfair, Soho
Price: £27.99–£49.99pp (food included)
Hidden City
Head off in teams of 2-6 people for this tour, where you will need to interact with characters and your surroundings as you make your way along the route. Interestingly, as the game unfolds you will make choices which will affect the outcome of your story – so choose wisely! There are built-in stops for food and drinks, and rest breaks if needed.
They also have a stress-free booking system: you can add people to the group at any point, change the date or time of the game and even get a full refund if you need to cancel.
Choose between several immersive storylines and locations in London:
- 007 Shadow of Spectre
- Moriarty’s Game
- The Hunt for the Cheshire Cat
- The Enchanted Mirror
Cheapo Top Tip: Sign up to their newsletter for a 10% discount.
Length of tour: Allow 3-4 hours
Area/s: Starts at Southbank, Marylebone, the Strand, South Kensington
Price: £25.00–£30.00pp
Street Hunt Games
Will you solve the mystery of the suspicious coffee company in The Case of Columbia’s Finest, a challenging series of puzzles centred around Gunpowder Square in the City, or perhaps the new Will Breaker – a tad less tricky, but you’re in a race against time to inherit your mysterious uncle’s estate?
Length of tour: Allow 1-2 hours
Area/s: City, Holborn
Price: £16.50
City Days
These popular treasure hunt tours offer two different experiences, depending on how immersive you want to get. Go for the classic scavenger hunt and solve a series of cryptic puzzles which guide you around your chosen area of London – or really go for it with the story-telling trails and take on the role of the main character who unravels a tale from the city’s past.
- Secrets of the Squares
- The City
- Greenwich Guile
- Mysterious Mews
- Search for Shoreditch
- A Forbidden Fayre
- All Gone South
- Return of Jack the Ripper
- Humanity’s Last
- A Rift in Time
Length of tour: Allow 1.5-3.5 hours
Area/s: 10 options across London
Solve a Mystery
Take your time with these two murder mystery games; there’s no race or leaderboard element and the route you will need to take is only a mile in length, so it’s a more relaxed option than some.
There’s also less panic about phone battery life and chargers, as you scan your pass to collect a physical envelope from a snack stall – undercover work at its finest! Take as long as you like to solve the case, but you must collect the envelope between 9am-8pm.
- The Murder by Trafalgar Square
- The Murder by Buckingham Palace
Length of tour: Allow 2 hours
Area/s: Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace
Price: £22.00pp
Bucket Race
Ready to start a rave in Cyberdog, rock down Electric Avenue, cuddle a giant teddy bear in Harrods or find a hipster in Shoreditch?
If you’re after a more traditional scavenger hunt with fun physical challenges for a larger group of ten or more, then Bucket Race is worth a look. They have series of tasks, challenges and puzzles themed to different areas of London from Brixton to Westminster, or can arrange a bespoke version for your team-building event or stag/hen do.
Mystery tours for one person
The Haunted City Exploration Game offers the solo traveller a tour of the most haunted spots around Mayfair, London. Visit London’s most haunted house and solve clues to unlock scary stories.
While we do our best to ensure it is correct, information is subject to change.
