Pictured clockwise from top: The Melvin family, Virginia Woods and daughter Caroline Miller, the Bowman family, the Orr family.

GOSH!

Great Outdoor Scavenger Hunt Participants Visit Iconic Texas Destinations

With continuing coronavirus concerns, Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine created a regional concept for our second annual Great Outdoor Scavenger Hunt, or GOSH, a summerlong Texas travel event. The first road-tripping contest was launched in 2019, then skipped a year in 2020.

The new regional approach proved popular, as more participants than ever packed up the car to visit parks, historic sites, landmarks and other locations and capture a selfie of themselves there, posting it to a social media channel with the hashtag #GOSH2021. We also included a bonus destination in each region at a traditional Texas eatery.

By the end of the contest on Labor Day, three groups finished the entire 30 tasks in five categories over six regions across the state and 18 couples/families completed all tasks in one region. The first family to finish was the Melvin family from Harker Heights, who also completed the contest in 2019.

The Orr family from Midland and the Bowmans also completed all 36 stops (including food) for GOSH ’21.

“We had the most wonderful summer — so many memories were created from all our adventures together,” says mom Julie Orr. “We had so many people follow our adventures on Facebook. Everyone loved all the pictures I posted from each of the stops. We learned so much about our great state, too.”

Our favorite nonagenarian from GOSH ’19, Miss Virginia, got around to all the Central Texas locations to finish one region this year.

You can still visit the gallery here to see all the fun and get inspired for your next adventure.

Look for GOSH 2022, with all new Texas destinations, in the June 2022 issue of Texas Parks & Wildlife.