What does your family do for vacation kicks? Other than swelter in the sun and soak in the sea, that is. Beyond the beach, what do you do for group amusement?

Maybe you putt a round of mini-golf or sink a line from a pier. Maybe you break out the backgammon board or piddle with a puzzle. But it’s pretty doubtful that you’d ever dream up a diversion like that of the Adkins family of Ohio.

For years now the Adkins family’s activity of the week has been a scavenger hunt. Not an ordinary scavenger hunt, but an elaborately crafted plan that requires each member of the family to engage in zany antics, to interact intimately with strangers and to traverse the vast stretches of Outer Banks in search of something silly.

True to Outer Banks trends, the Adkins family vacations en masse, renting two large oceanfront houses next door to each other in Nags Head. Bob Adkins, of South Solon, Ohio, 51, is one of the Adkinses; the others are his wife, three sons, mother, brother, sister-in-law and three nieces, plus assorted spouses and small children. The Adkinses have been coming to the Outer Banks since Bob was in high school, when an impromptu trip to Myrtle Beach turned out to take too long and Kitty Hawk filled the bill. The family has returned almost every year since, sampling a variety of Outer Banks locales and settling lately in South Nags Head.

This family is crafty in its quest for fun. Before the scavenger hunt, someone in the family developed an Outer Banks Monopoly game, with all the standard elements of the game but with Outer Banks real estate. On a rainy afternoon about five or so years ago, one member came up with the idea of a scavenger hunt as a family activity. They developed a list of Outer Banky items and tasks, divided the family up into groups and went about chalking items off the list.

The Adkins family scavenger hunt is now an annual event. Every year the items on the list get more creative, and the rules have evolved. At the beginning of the week, they collectively come up with a list of 30 items to photograph. The family is divided into groups of four or five and each group is given a disposable camera. They have a week to get the most pictures of items on the list. At week’s end, the film is developed and the points are tallied. Each picture that correlates to the list gets 10 points. You get extra points if you can get more than one item in a photo. The team with the most points wins.

Sounds easy? It does until you see their list. Consider item No. 1 on the 2001 list: A picture of a team member serving up snacks behind the counter at the Nags Head Cineplex. Or No. 2: A team member showing plumber’s crack while working under the kitchen sink of a stranger’s house (provide proof of stranger). Or No. 21: A picture of a team member holding hands with an old couple at sunset. Or No. 7: A picture of a team member in a police car.

Scavenging, it turns out, sometimes involves a lot of begging and pleading, sometimes groveling, with a big smile on your face. Members of the Adkins family have talked waitresses at Western Sizzlin’ into letting them try on their aprons and serve a table of customers. They’ve talked the people at Nags Head Bowling into letting them borrow a trophy and stand outside smiling, as if they had won it. They’ve talked anglers into letting them hold their catch for grip-n-grin. They’ve gotten women in thongs and men with hairy backs to let them take their photos. They talked Glenn Eure at the Ghost Fleet Gallery into taking off his shoe and sock and posing his left foot for a picture.

The Adkins family has discovered that most people are more than willing to help achieve these unusual vacation goals.