Turn Your Neighbourhood into a Trick-or-Treat Adventure
Pathyn Team
🎃 How to Create a Halloween Treasure Map with Pathyn
Halloween isn’t just about costumes and sweets — it’s about adventure. This year, you can turn your street, garden, or local park into a spooky treasure hunt with a custom Halloween map made using Pathyn, the Treasure Map Maker. In our previous post, we highlighted reasons to create a treasure map, and in this post we’ll explore a Halloween themed map.
In England, the houses or flats that have pumpkins (and/or other spooky fun decorations) are the ones to visit when trick-or-treating. You could plan ahead and map out the trick-or-treat adventure. Share it with friends, and you’ll find each other along the trail!
Whether you’re planning a trick-or-treat route, a party scavenger hunt, or a neighbourhood adventure for kids, Pathyn lets you design your own old-style parchment map filled with ghosts, pumpkins, witches, bats, and eerie landmarks.
🦇 Step 1: Choose the Halloween Theme
Open the Pathyn app and switch to the Halloween theme.
Choose your map theme with Pathyn.
This automatically changes your map’s background to a warm, beige parchment — just like an old spooky scroll — and unlocks a collection of themed icons:
👻 Ghosts
🎃 Jack-o-lanterns
🧙♀️ Witches and cauldrons
🕷️ Spiders and webs
🏚️ Haunted houses
Each icon can be flipped or resized, so you can style your map exactly how you want.
🌲 Step 2: Customize with the New Decor Panel
A brand-new feature in Pathyn’s theme is the Decor Panel, which lets you frame your map with beautifully eerie borders. Open it up with the paintbrush button on the left hand side. Click Frame at the top of the decor panel to open up a selection of frame designs (see example below).
Click on Frame and choose your border.
You can choose from designs like spooky tree silhouettes, delicate spider webs, or a soft foggy edge that gives your parchment a misty, mysterious feel. Each border’s transparency can be adjusted (use the strength slider), so you can keep it subtle or make it dramatically dark — the perfect finishing touch for your Halloween adventure.
🔒 Step 3: Lock the Map (Freeze the View)
When your route and key points are set, click the Lock (🔒) button in the toolbar to freeze the map. This disables panning/zooming so you won’t accidentally nudge the base map while placing decorations. You can unlock anytime to adjust the route, then re-lock before continuing.
Click on the lock to freeze the map in place.
🕯️ Step 4: Add Decorations and Details
Click on the icons panel to see this theme’s icons. Use the size slider to adjust the size of icons. Click on an icon and then click on a location on the map to place the icon. Check the flip box to flip the icon if wanted. Remember to uncheck the flip checkbox to place a new icon on the map. Make your map look extra spooky by layering in some of Pathyn’s Halloween extras:
🦇 Flying bats across corners
🕸️ A spider dropping down from a web
💀 Skulls/skeletons or coffins marking “danger zones”
🌕 A full moon glowing over your route
You can even add a witch flying in front of the moon or a black cat watching the path — just for atmosphere.
Click on the icons panel and click on the map to place the icons.
🗺️ Step 5: Add Your Route or Landmarks
Think of your map as a Halloween adventure plan. Add markers for:
- Trick-or-treat stops
- Hidden sweets or surprises
- Haunted decorations in the neighbourhood
- Safe meeting points for kids
Pathyn lets you drop icons directly on the map, so your design is both beautiful and practical. See the below example of planning trick-or-treat stops at houses, using little cauldron icons.
Add landmarks or a route.
🧭 Step 6: Download or Print Your Map
When your masterpiece is ready, click Download Map to save your design and print it out. Printed on parchment-style paper, your Halloween map looks like something straight out of an old spell book — ideal for scavenger hunts, party invitations, or framing as a keepsake.
Make It a Family Tradition
Creating a treasure map with your kids isn’t just a craft — it’s a memory. You can build a new version every year, adding new icons and adventures as your neighbourhood changes.
Save your map digitally, print copies for friends, or post it online as part of your Halloween treasure hunt invitation.
This Halloween, skip the store-bought decorations and create your own story. With Pathyn, your neighbourhood becomes a canvas for spooky imagination — and every street corner can hide a new surprise.
Create your Halloween treasure map and be safe on your trick-or-treating adventure!
Choose your own path with Pathyn
