The problem with telling a nine-year-old you are going to a historic house museum is that you have already lost. The problem with telling them there is a scavenger hunt with a $1,776 cash prize is that you have not.

The Long Island History Hunt is running its second year, and the 2026 edition, called "Redcoats and Rebels," sends participants to 26 museums, landmarks and historic sites with ties to the American Revolution. It runs through September 30, which means there are roughly two months left.

It is free to enter, and it is sponsored by the Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation.

How it works

You register at LIHistoryHunt.com. Then you go to sites. At each one there is a selfie challenge, and you upload your photo to the History Hunt site to log the visit.

That is the entire mechanic. There is no fixed order, no time limit within the season, and no requirement to do them in a single trip. You can knock off three North Shore stops on one Saturday and forget about it for a month.

The prize structure, which is smarter than it looks

Complete a challenge at one or more sites and you are automatically eligible to win one of five prizes. That threshold matters. It means a single stop on a rainy Sunday counts for something, which is a far better design than a hunt that only rewards completion.

Complete challenges at 10 or more locations and you are entered to win $250 cash.

Complete all 26 and you earn the title of Revolutionary Trailblazer, with entry into the drawing for the $1,776 grand prize, plus exclusive merchandise and an invitation to a luncheon.

The $1,776 figure is, obviously, the year. This edition is tied to America's 250th anniversary, which is why the theme is Revolutionary rather than general Long Island history.

Where you will end up

The 26 sites span Nassau County, Suffolk County and Brooklyn. A few of them are the reason to do this at all.

Raynham Hall Museum, Oyster Bay

This is the Culper Spy Ring house. Robert Townsend, the New York merchant who operated as the ring's key agent under the alias Samuel Culper Jr., was a member of the family that lived here, and the house was occupied by British officers during the war. Standing in a room where intelligence work and the officers it was aimed at overlapped under one roof is a considerably different experience from reading about it.

Rock Hall Museum, Lawrence

A Georgian colonial house from the 1760s, one of the best-preserved buildings of its period on Long Island, and a reminder that the South Shore of Nassau County had a wealthy pre-Revolutionary establishment.

Roslyn Grist Mill

The Dutch-style mill in Roslyn dates to around 1715 and is one of the oldest commercial buildings in the state. It has been through a long restoration and is a strong example of what survives when a community refuses to let a building go.

The rest of the list runs from the western Nassau line out to the East End, and includes museums that most Long Islanders have driven past for years without stopping.

Why Long Island is a legitimate Revolutionary War destination

This is the part that tends to surprise people who grew up here.

The Battle of Long Island in August 1776 was the first major engagement after the Declaration of Independence and the largest battle of the entire war by number of troops involved. The Continental Army lost it. What followed was a British occupation of Long Island that lasted seven years, until the end of the war, longer than the occupation of almost anywhere else in the thirteen colonies.

That occupation is why the Culper Spy Ring existed and why it operated out of Setauket and Oyster Bay. It is also why so many surviving Long Island houses from that period have a story about which officers were quartered in them. The Island was not a sideshow. It was held territory for the duration.

Making it work as an actual summer plan

Two months and 26 sites is roughly three stops a week if you were determined to finish, which almost nobody will be. The more realistic approach is to cluster.

Oyster Bay and Roslyn are a comfortable pairing for a single morning. The Lawrence and southwestern Nassau sites are another. Suffolk's North Shore sites group well, and the East End stops fit naturally onto a day you were already spending out there.

Check individual site hours before you drive. Small historic house museums frequently open only Thursday through Sunday, or by appointment, and a locked door is the fastest way to sour a family on the whole project.

September 30 is the cutoff. The sites are open now, the weather is cooperating, and the entry fee is zero.