We did an Amazing Race theme for DS's 12th birthday party last year, and it was a blast. Since I didn't want them running wild in our mall and we don't have a real nice downtown area, we used our neighborhood instead. I talked to various neighbors within a few streets or so of ours (which includes up and down hills) and they all agreed to let their yards be "countries" for the day.
We had about 30 kids in 4 teams, and boy did they take it seriously. At each country we had a banner of the country's flag and name of the country. They had clue boxes which contained details of the activity they had to perform in it but some times there was a roadblock where they would have to choose one of two activities. Once they completed the activity, they would get their next clue which would tell them directions to the next "country"
Some of our countries were Egypt (digging for various items in large buckets of sand), Switzerland (baby diaper game with chocolate), and Italy (digging gummy worms out of piles of whipped cream with only their mouth). I remember one road block was either one person had to eat a sardine in hot sauce and 3 Vienna sausages or the whole team each had to eat a jar of baby food. Surprisingly, a person from each team volunteered to eat the sardines and sausages, and it was so funny to watch.
I have rambled on way too much, but it really was a great party. All of the kids had a great time, and we loved watching them take it so seriously like they were really in the actual Amazing Race. There were even neighbors we didn't know that came outside their houses to watch the kids run around the neighborhood and do the various activites.
Have fun!
