What sets Mystery Guides apart is their unique blend of creativity, historical facts and meticulous detail. These aren’t just simple trails or treasure hunts. These are immersive experiences that make you feel like a real detective on a case. The amount of work and thought put into each hunt is evident in every clue, puzzle and fact. These guides are a labour of love.

Perfect for amateur sleuths, history enthusiasts and adventurers

I’ve always loved detective shows, solving puzzles and cracking codes. One of our favourite shows as a family is The 1% Percent Club because we love working out logic problems. We also love visiting places of historical interest. So when I discovered the Mystery Guides series, I knew that with their combination of all these elements, they’d be the perfect adventure for us.

Mystery Guides – the outdoor escape room

‘The Champagne of treasure hunts,’ Mystery Guides immerse you in a whodunnit adventure around the streets of 25 UK cities. You read maps, unravel clues, decode symbols, decipher cryptic messages, eliminate suspects, and follow a trail leading to the final ‘wow’ moment of solving the mystery and revealing the villain. All the while, you enjoy an intricate story and fact-filled tour of the city, discovering its rich – and often lesser-known – history and secret hidden gems.

Each trail includes carefully selected historical pubs to stop at and takes approximately two-to-three hours to complete. 

Our City of London Mystery Adventure

I bought the City of London Mystery Guide as a present for the family. It was beautifully presented and looked very intriguing. We couldn’t wait to do it.

Having worked in the Square Mile for years, I thought I knew the area inside out. However, Mystery Guides proved me wrong. The trail, created by Jack Wells, a historian-turned-entrepreneur who loves puzzles, revealed a different side of the city—one filled with under-the-radar landmarks and untold stories. We even learnt new things about the more familiar sights on our trail.

As we embarked on our adventure, we encountered other couples and groups engrossed in the same trail. We loved the challenge and feeling of accomplishment of solving each puzzle and clue. We weren’t competitive at all! After almost three hours of sleuthing, we unravelled the mystery. The sense of achievement was immense, and the whole experience left us with wonderful memories.

Much more than your average adventure trail

What sets Mystery Guides apart is their unique blend of creativity, historical facts and meticulous detail. These aren’t just simple trails or treasure hunts. These are immersive experiences that make you feel like a real detective on a case. The amount of work and thought put into each hunt is evident in every clue, puzzle and fact. These guides are a labour of love.

The experience was not just about fun, though there was plenty of that. We learned so much about the city’s history and its unexplored corners.

While Mystery Guides are designed for adults, they’re a great family experience; our kids, aged 12 and up, were completely captivated. I’d say they’re suitable for ages nine and over.

We can’t wait for our next Mystery Guides adventure. Luckily my mother-in-law knows me well and bought me a Mystery Guides gift card for Christmas. Now I need to decide where we want to go and discover next. I think I’ve narrowed it down to Cambridge, Oxford or Stratford-upon-Avon!

—–

If you’re looking for a unique way to explore a UK city and create lasting memories, I highly recommend giving them a try. Mystery Guides cost £19.99 and are available to buy here.

The post Mystery Guides: The Ultimate Treasure Hunt for All the Family appeared first on The Parent Social.

The idea

Characters Max and Katie take children on an immersive journey through history via the adventure story and magazine included in each box. Join them in the story as they try to solve a mystery concerning the era that the time machine’s transported you to.   

What is included:

Base pack

• Mystery/adventure story
• Glossy history magazine full of interesting facts, puzzles and activities (including colouring sheets)  
• Egyptian bookmark  
• Hieroglyph chart
• Themed sticker sheet
• Timeline sticker
• Lovely, large world map with timeline (this comes in the first box)

Upgrade

All of the above plus crafting materials and a history-related gift.

Mysteries in Time – History Subscription Boxes

The pack is wonderfully presented and full of intriguing and colourful items, which were all good quality. My children (aged 8-11) couldn’t wait to get started. Our surprise gift was an Egyptian-themed pen (Nefertiti as they later discovered). Our crafting materials were modelling clay with gem stickers, which went down very well.

Unboxing

We unfolded the world map, which was delightfully large and glossy, and found Egypt. This led to lots of discussion about the relative sizes of different countries (much surprise about how tiny the UK is). We then added our timeline sticker to the bottom. You add another sticker each month so you get to see different historical periods in context.

We shared the story together over the course of a few nights at bedtime and they really couldn’t get enough. I initially thought my eldest daughter might be a bit old for it, but she thoroughly enjoyed it too and actually took over the reading.

They loved being historian detectives and finding out lots of interesting facts and details in the narrative; it really brought history to life in a fun way. They were so engaged that we’d refer to the magazine the next day to find out more about the things we’d read about in the story.  

The magazine is very informative and covers a surprising amount of ground in a succinct, enjoyable and easily digestible way. You can dip into it whenever you want, which is exactly what we did. They even used Mysteries in Time for a homeschooling project!

My younger two really enjoyed the colouring activities and we all loved the quizzes and decoding the hieroglyphics. The crafting materials are a great extra. The air-drying modelling clay (with gem stickers for decorating) was very well received. They made an Egyptian-style amulet as per one of the suggestions included. However, they went a bit off piste with their modelling   

The final verdict

The children enjoyed the whole concept from start to finish. They got a lot out of it both in terms of fun and education. I thought it was a brilliantly cohesive, engaging and enjoyable way to learn. As with all the best educational tools, they didn’t realise they were learning. It was also a great antidote to learning via a screen or worksheet. It’s a resource we’ll be able to go back to time and time again.

My one tiny complaint about the whole box is that the it would have been better to have blue clay as opposed to green (as yellow was also included).

The details

The other subscription boxes in the series are: Elizabethan Era, Evacuees in WW2, Ancient Greece, Wild West, Aztecs, Ancient Rome, Victorians, Vikings, Ancient China, Space history and Stuarts.

The base version is £11.95 per month plus postage. The optional upgrade, which provides the extra activity and gift item, is £6.95 plus postage. Use The Parent Social’s discount code PS10 to enjoy 10% off any subscription.  

You can cancel your subscription at any time.

https://mysteriesintime.com/

We were sent a free ‘Mysteries in Time’ upgraded subscription box in return for an unbiased review.

The post History Subscription Boxes for Children appeared first on The Parent Social.