5 Offsite Team Activities That Make the Whole Trip a Hit

Handstand has built custom offsite team activities all over the world, from beaches in Mexico and lake resorts in Wisconsin to historic hotels in Ireland and the streets of NYC. Across 300+ corporate events and 52,000+ players, with a 9.4/10 average rating, we’ve learned that when it comes to offsites, the team activity is the part of the trip everyone remembers.

That positive memory also pays off. Atlassian’s research team found that intentional in-person team gatherings raised team connection by 27%, and the boost lasted four to five months.

So give that company-wide activity block the thought it deserves. Here are five offsite team-building ideas, broken down by category, to help you plan an epic activity:

• Boost energy
• Explore your offsite location
• Play across multiple days
• Get creative
• Give back

Each goal comes with an event companies loved, so you can see what’s possible for your offsite.

Boost Energy: Organize a Field Day Competition

Competitive group? Make the offsite’s centerpiece a tournament with stakes and a champion.

For Whitestone’s 70-person offsite in San José del Cabo, we built the Cabo Cup, a Survivor-inspired beach Field Day.

Four cohorts rotated through physical, mental, and intuition-based challenges. A rank-based scoring system meant that all teams competed against each other, no matter which cohort they were in, and the final standings were announced on the beach in front of everyone! Players rated the event 9.1/10, and one participant called it “a lifelong memory.”

Field Day formats travel well to beaches, parks, campus lawns, and hotel grounds, and the rotation structure scales with your headcount.

Our tips:

• Scoring makes or breaks a competition like this. If one team pulls ahead early, other teams tend to check out, so use a format where the standings can still swing in the final rounds.
• Mix the challenge types so the athlete, the puzzle solver, and the personality hire all get a turn to carry their team!
• Keep weather in mind so that folks are comfortable. Humidity and heat impact morale.

Explore Your Offsite Location: Run a Scavenger Hunt

A corporate scavenger hunt is the classic offsite move, and it’s still the best way to get a team out of the banquet room and into the awesome place you spent a lot of money to fly them to.

When Duke Corporate Education brought 76 senior leaders from Prosus to Silicon Valley for a six-day leadership summit, they wanted an outdoor activity that would 1) Get people moving

2) Teach folks about Silicon Valley's history

3) Tie in Prosus' values and goals

We built a custom Hunt through downtown Mountain View with riddles rooted in exciting trivia and stories of innovation, that brought leaders from all over the world together. Players rated their Hunt 9.1/10 with an NPS of 77, and said they left feeling inspired.

Our tips:

• Put your company’s themes, lore, history, or inside jokes into the clues to connect to your culture.
• Schedule it early so it doubles as an orientation and gives people stories for dinner, or save it for the end to cap off the trip.
• Start and end near your hotel or venue for easy logistics, and have a weather backup just in case.

Want a Hunt around offsite location? Get a quote with your headcount and dates, and we’ll reach out within 24 hours.

Play Across a Multi-Day Trip: A Game That's Always On

Some offsites are PACKED and don’t have a two-hour gap to give. When the schedule is already tight with sessions across several days, organize a company-wide game that runs in the background instead. People play between meetings, after dinner, or in the middle of the night (yes, we've seen it happen). The fun is always available, and it gives everyone something to talk about when they cross paths.

For Northslope’s four-day offsite at the Killashee Hotel, a 19th-century manor on 140 acres in Ireland, we invented Invitation Only featuring The Colonel, a long-dead, puzzle-obsessed eccentric whose game had sat unsolved for centuries.

Every guest arrived to find a letter from The Colonel on their bed. Interactive props were hidden all over the grounds. Portraits around the hotel lit up when touched, a stack of books hid a peephole behind a magnetized spine, and a time-released finale led to a locked briefcase with a custom prize.

80% of attendees joined, solving 435 quests between meetings and into the night. Throughout the week we heard coworkers stop each other in the halls and ask how far they were in the game. One engineer said, “I was in bed with my PJs on, read the letter, then was out in the fields at 1 AM in the rain looking for clues.” Needless to say it was a 10/10.

Our tips:

• First, if you want to go this route, loop the venue in early, because hiding props around the property takes the hotel’s buy-in.
• Release the game in stages to keep momentum going across all the days, like how the Invitation Only finale unlocked 24 hours in.
• Mix solo and team puzzles, since about a fifth of the Invitation Only game required teaming up, which is one way the game pulled coworkers together.

Get Creative: Make Something Together

Creative challenges are underrated. Give a team some props, a tripod, and a deadline, and they'll be debating camera angles with coworkers they’ve never worked with.

That’s how #workbesties are born, and Gallup argues those relationships pay off. They estimate that if six in ten employees had a best friend at work (instead of two in ten), companies would see 12% higher profit.

So connect your team with some creative, collaborative fun. When Lattice hosted a company-wide onsite at its San Francisco HQ, we turned the office into a puzzle-and-creativity competition.

150 players raced through challenging puzzles and riddles with their teams, then filmed stop-motion videos with tripods and props. Teams produced 22 minutes of stop-motion film. The afternoon ended with a peer-voted Oscar ceremony!

Our tips:

• If people have truly never met in person, put them on teams with their usual coworkers so they finally get that face-to-face time. Otherwise, build new connections by mixing folks up.
• Keep teams small enough that everyone is engaged and has a role, around 4–6 people (that goes for every team activity on this list!).
• If teams are producing a tangible result, like Lattice’s stop-motion videos, end the event with a grand reveal and a vote for a winning team.

Giving Back: Build in a Donation

Not only does a philanthropic activity give everyone a shared purpose, but it can also be super fun.

Crisis Text Line asked us to make their first-ever company offsite memorable and mission-aligned. We built The Stuffy Story Challenge, where their 200 employees split into teams to solve riddles, earned stuffed animal accessories, then filmed funny, heartfelt videos starring their dressed-up bears.

Each video was linked to a custom-etched necklace on the team's bear, and the stuffed animals were then donated to Shriners Children’s Hospital Chicago. In the end, 27+ pediatric patients got a new friend with a story built in. Participants rated it 9.8/10. ❤️

Our tips:

• Pick a cause tied to your company's mission or your host city.
• You don’t need stuffed animals to pull this off. Any team competition can end with a donation output (kits, art, donations) that will make an impact.
• Before choosing what to donate, check in with the intended recipient organization, since they often have specific items they need or can't accept.
• After the event, share a photo or note from the recipients so your team can feel the impact of their work.

Make Your Next Capstone Team-Building Moment a Memorable One

Planning an offsite and staring at an empty activity block? Tell us the city, headcount, and what you're looking for, and we’ll fill it with an event worth talking about.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are good team activities for a company offsite?

Start with what you want the offsite to accomplish. Remote teams meeting in person get the most from a shared creative mission, mission-driven companies get more out of a philanthropic challenge, and competitive groups come alive with a Field Day tournament. If you've flown everyone somewhere new, a scavenger hunt gets people out exploring the city together.

How long should an offsite team activity be?

Usually, companies choose to block 2–3 hours for a capstone team event. All of the activities on this list fit that timeframe, other than the multi-day activation idea.

How much does an offsite team activity cost?

Handstand Hunts start at $1,500 for up to 30 players, in any city. Larger groups, custom builds, and multi-day formats scale from there. Our cost guide specifically breaks down the pricing of a Hunt.

How far ahead should we book?

It depends on what exactly you're looking to plan. For a standard Hunt, book at least 3 weeks out. If there is more customization and production, book around one month out. For groups of 200+ or a fully custom experience, give it six to eight weeks or more. As a general rule of thumb, the earlier we brainstorm together the more elaborate and fun we can get!

Can you run an activity for an international offsite?

Yes. For example, we've built offsite experiences on the beach in San José del Cabo and across four days at a historic hotel in Ireland.