Best Easter Egg Hunts in Your Area

Update: For 2010 Easter Egg Hunts click the link

Here is my list of Easter Egg Hunts in Denver.

If you are looking for a good big Easter Egg Hunt to take your children to but seem to be coming up empty, rest assured that most communities have several solid options for Easter Egg Hunts or Easter Egg Scrambles.

Searching Google sounds like a good plan but it can be frustrating because Easter is a transient event and Google’s ranking system rewards sites for longevity and the number of sites that link to them.  Plenty of people link to their church’s website, but not so many people link to the event page for the local parks or recreation center, so the good Easter Egg Hunts might be pretty far down on the list.

To make a good Google search for Easter Egg Hunts or Easter Egg Scrambles requires  using a couple of the fancier “advanced” Google tricks.  Don’t worry, the aren’t really advanced, that is just what Google calls everything that isn’t just typing words in the standard rectangle box and pressing the search button.

Search Google For Easter Egg Hunts and Get Good Results

Here is a step by step guide to finding good Easter Egg Hunts in your area.

1. Click Advanced Search and scroll down until you see where you can limit your search results by date.  Select within the last month.  This will keep you from getting “troll results” published by some lame websites a few months in advance in order to build up “link power” and get ranked high in Google.  Anyone who is really just trying to help you would with good Easter information didn’t post anything until March.  — Trust me.  Choose “Last Month” – This will also keep you from getting last year’s information!  If it’s 2009 and you see an April 7-ish date, you are looking at last year’s information.  This year’s Easter Egg Hunts will be the 10th, 11th, or 12th for the most part.
2. Use Quotes – putting words in quotes tells Google to only return results with those exact words in that exact order.  Searching for Easter Egg Hunt without quotes technically matches sites that say, “Easter means wonder pastel colors and the start of duck hunt season.  But don’t combine the two or you’ll have egg on your face.” – Um, yeah, whatever.  — “Easter Egg Hunt” would eliminate that kind of thing and only give you answers with those three words in order.
3. Remember Scramble – Technically, a hunt is where you hunt for, or try to find eggs that have been hidden.  Many areas do an Easter Egg Scramble which is where you put a bunch of eggs out in plain site on a field or grassy area and just let the kids run around picking them up.  These are way better for younger kids and definitely the way to go for toddlers.  So, search for “Easter Egg Scramble” (remember the quotes) too.
4. Use the minus sign “-“ AKA the exclude operator to eliminate unrelated results.  Hey, I love church services as much as the next guy, but if I want to take my kids to see a guy in a bunny suit and watch them run around finding eggs, churches aren’t actually the best places for that.  Any word you put in the Google search box with a minus sign in front of it (no space) means don’t give me search results that have this word in them.  If you are getting too many results for Easter Sunrise Service Followed by…  Just put –sunrise or –service or whatever keeps popping up.  You can put as many minus sign words as you want, so just keep adding them until your results are clear enough to go through.
5. Use the site operator – If you know what website will give you good results if you can just find them, use the site operator.  By typing site:undefeateddaddy.com, for example, Google will only give you results from this website.  Try it.  This should be the only result for the search “Easter Egg Scramble” site:undefeateddaddy.com – Good target sites include local newspapers and local news channels, as well as community sites.

What Kind of Easter Egg Hunt Is Best For Toddlers

Toddlers don’t like to be trampled under the feet of bigger kids and shouting at other parent’s is a sure fire way to have a junky egg hunt.  So, look for egg hunting events where there are times broken out by age group.  Ideally, you want an event with narrow age groups. A two year old is very different than a three year old when it comes to running around with a basket trying to pick up as many eggs as possible.

On that note, stick with the scramble-type Easter Egg hunts.  With this type, the eggs are out in the open and the kids just run around picking them up.  Assuming that there are enough eggs out there, your child will get a handful of eggs, have fund, be happy, and be done, before it drags on long enough to stop being fun.

Also, make more of it.  Grab breakfast or donuts or sandwiches and have them before and after the hunt.  Then head to a toy store and buy the little guy a bunny or something.  Then, play with them all day.  If Easter is sacred to you, there are plenty of events held on the Saturday before.

If all else fails, go to the zoo.  Usually they give colored eggs to some of the animals for fun!

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