Departures: new york 2011

In April 2011, I took a trip to New York City to help run a puzzle hunt. At the time, this was not a typical thing to do. But I swear it made sense.

• In 2009-2010, a new puzzlehunt series emerged, DASH, "Different Area Same Hunt". This was an attempt to run BANG-like (hours-long, walking-around) puzzlehunts in places that didn't already have a BANG-like tradition. I played in these hunts. They were fun, but the puzzles were targeted at folks new to puzzlehunts. But I wasn't new to puzzlehunts. I was jaded, felt a little bored. In the back of my mind was the thought, If it's a game kinda like what you like, but not quite, maybe you'd prefer to help run it than to play it.
  
  
• In 2008, I ran out of sensible ways to pick vacation destinations. I came up with a weird scheme using census data, but in 2009 that scheme sent me to Texas. I wanted a destination picker that wasn't entirely under my control, but not one that sent me to Dallas with no-particular-plan. That way led boredom.
  
  
• I'd figured out that my embedded reporter puzzlehunt project had hit a snag. The project plan was brilliant: for the first weekend-long puzzlehunt each year, I'd play with my usual team, Mystic Fish. But for the second such hunt, I'd play with a different team each year and write about it. But since 2008, there hadn't been any year with two weekend-long games. I still wanted an excuse to write about puzzle nerds I wouldn't normally encounter, but maybe I needed a new excuse.
  
  
• In 2010, Debbie Goldstein flew to New York City to help run DASH. She came back and reported: Wow, that was fun! Traveling to DASH is fun! You should try it! That sounded like a great idea. I could help out DASH. I could travel. I could meet new puzzle nerds.

When DASH3 was announced, I mailed the DASH organizers: which city wanted a volunteer? Say the word, and I'd book the travel. Brett Rogers from New York City piped up. Along with the puzzlehunt stuff, there were plenty of other things to do. So I gave myself a week ahead of DASH3 just to have fun in New York. I was in town April 23-May 1.

In this list, the puzzle-hunt-ish and location-based-games-ish things are towards the end. Click accordingly.

• Modern Art New York's a good museum town.
• Roosevelt Island A skinny island.
• Boat Tour I took a boat tour around Manhattan.
• West Village and Thereabouts Walking around.
• Williamsburg and Brooklyn Hipsters and more.
• In the Park Playing Margaret Maloney's Sunday in the Park with Margaret puzzle hunt game.
• Brooklyn Museum as a location-based game.
• Geocaching NYC has a puzzly geocaching scene. I don't know much about it, but here's what I found out.
• DASH3 I volunteered to help run the NYC instance of DASH (Different Area Same Hunt) 3 puzzle hunt game.

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