The San Francisco Bay Area is home to hundreds of parks and thousands of restaurants. The city alone has 36 neighborhoods and is a stone’s throw from more than 100 other municipalities, making it the perfect spot for team scavenger hunts, Amazing Race challenges, and other outdoor and indoor team building events.
Our list of the top 10 San Francisco Bay Area team-building activities will inspire your coworkers to get creative and solve challenges — all while having a blast!
Escape From Angel Island
OK, so Angel Island isn’t exactly Alcatraz. But there are a lot of rules in place and it costs a LOT of money if you want to run a team building event on Alcatraz (although we have done it in the past so by all means contact Feet First Eventertainment if you have a healthy budget!)
Another island that offers spectacular views (and doesn’t require a huge amount of money for a team building event) is Angel Island. Once home to the West Coast’s Ellis Island, it’s now a public park.
Give your team outdoor escape room clues. All they need to do is figure out the clues in time to make it to the dock before the last ferry leaves.
Napa, Sonoma, or Healdsburg Wine Tour
Napa, Sonoma, and Healdsburg are famous for their wineries. Get your team’s bonding juices flowing with a little vino at one of the best wine countries in the country.
Your team will learn how the vines are grown, the grapes are harvested, the juice is extracted, and the wine is aged.
Cooking Challenge
The Bay Area is known for being a pretty big foodie haven. Celebrate Bay Area food culture (especially if you’re in the East Bay, Chinatown, or wine country) by challenging your team to a cook-off.
You can make this simple by hiring a chef to teach your team how to cook. Or you can make things interesting by layering this event with a Chopped-style challenge!
Give teams a mystery basket and ask them to use the ingredients to cook up a tasty meal — judged by department heads, of course!
East Bay Food Tour
If you want to celebrate the Bay Area’s foodie vibe without all the drama of a challenge, just take a food tour instead.
The East Bay is the perfect spot, as it’s home to some of the most iconic restaurants in San Francisco. Learn about the history and culture of the East Bay while sampling some delicious eats.
This activity is perfect for teams with high numbers of Bay Area transplants.
Bay Area Amazing Race
The San Francisco Bay Area has so many different neighborhoods and cities — all within a few hours apart from each other by car, Muni transit, bike, or BART.
Choose one neighborhood or make it a multi-day event by sending your teammates to different neighborhoods and cities for an Amazing Race activity.
Much like the TV show of the same name, this activity will send your coworkers on a wild goose chase around the area. If they want to win, they’ll need to complete challenges to get the clue to the next neighborhood or city.
San Jose Murder Mystery
Everyone loves a good ‘whodunnit.’ Why not enact a murder mystery challenge in one of the most mysterious cities in the Bay Area: San Jose.
Take your team on a tour of the Winchester Mystery House before heading to a restaurant’s private event space to host your own murder mystery dinner. Or charter a boat to take your team out on the San Francisco Bay for your event.
Oakland Flugtag Challenge
Take your team to the Oakland Aviation Museum to learn about the city’s aviation history. Then, challenge your coworkers to their own aviation challenge: building their very own airplane to show off in a flugtag (which is German for flight show).
Mission Possible Sausalito Edition
You don’t need to know the plot of the Mission Impossible movies to take part in this challenge. All you need to do is accept your mission!
Sausalito is the perfect spot for Mission Possible challenges, as it offers the backdrop of a picturesque town as well as a marina setting.
Your team will need to solve challenges to get to the next locations, shoot undercover surveillance videos, and take part in spy training — all in a setting that looks like it was ripped from the Riviera.
Treasure Island Survivor
Everyone knows that Survivor always takes place on an island. Why not take your Survivor challenge to one of the best parks in the Bay Area, Treasure Island?
While this challenge won’t get anyone actually kicked off the island, it’ll force teammates to work together to survive physical and mental challenges.
Bay Area Movie Previews
Did you know that some of the most iconic movies were filmed right here in the Bay Area?
Albert Hitchcock used some of the most well-known San Francisco neighborhoods (and surrounding Bay areas) as the backdrops of his films. George Lucas filmed scenes on the forest moon of Endor (also known as ‘that planet where the Ewoks live’) in the Redwood Forest.
Walk in the footsteps of famed filmmakers by making your own movie trailer in some of the most iconic cinematic settings.
Make a list of famous Bay Area-based movies. Each team picks the name of a movie out of a hat and gets to make that movie preview.
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