Best outdoor team building activities: leave winter behind

Best outdoor team building activities

Treasure hunts

The best thing about treasure hunts is that they do not require a specific environment to work out. A treasure hunt is the perfect solution for those who want to enjoy the perks of outdoors team building activities, but can’t afford to travel far enough to get to a forest, a beach or the side of a mountain. Rejoice: your local park and even your neighbourhood will work just as well as the countryside or the wilderness. A treasure hunt is not only a fun and entertaining group experience, it can also be surprisingly cost-effective. Of course, if you can spare the budget, it’s great to book a few days in the countryside and throw in a nice wine-tasting too, but it’s by no means a fixed requirement. You can get just as much out of a treasure hunt in your own town or city. It will be the perfect opportunity to learn about local history and discover the hidden gems that we drive-by every day on our way to work without noticing. A fixed feature in all of our treasure hunts, nowadays, are iPads: the popularity of this particular type of team building has prompted the development of great apps that make the game even more interesting.

Dragon boating

Dragon boat racing is the ultimate team building activity: success depends entirely on the team’s capacity for working together in harmony, rather than on individual skills. And yet, individuals never feel ignored or unimportant, as each of them plays a unique and indispensable role in the collective endeavour. Individual strength and speed, therefore, while useful, will always be less important than timing and the ability to look at and listen to each other, in order to push forward – literally. As a team building exercise, dragon boat racing is perfect for improving communication and training leadership skills. Contrary to what you might think, you probably won’t need to travel far to take your team dragon boat-racing: we did it in Rome, in the city lake of Eur. Any reasonably large body of water will do, as long as you use the services of trained professionals to ensure that the whole experience is safe and fun for everyone at all times.

Survivor adventure challenges

This is generally the activity that comes to mind whenever the words “outdoors” and “team building” are mentioned in connection, and with good reason. Survivor adventure challenges are, simply put, terrific fun. Depending on where you are or where you can travel to, they can also be adapted to include a variety of activities, from zip-lining to Tibetan bridge-crossing, climbing, blindfolded tent-pitching, orienteering and many more. The sky really is the limit, in this case. Before you set out on a survivor adventure team building challenge, we recommend you talk to your team and make notes of any specific needs or problems individual members may have with the activities you are planning. If you are considering zip-lining, for instance, make sure nobody in your team is afraid of heights. You should, of course, hire trained professionals to conduct this kind of activity, but even though safety is guaranteed at all times, certain phobias or triggering situations might prevent individual team members from joining in the fun, thus negating the whole point of team building.