What is the best size for a group?
Is this for real?
What should we bring?
How long does this take?
People often ask how long it takes to discover the secret. It is impossible to say. Some people have discovered it in a day. Others have taken many days. Some people may never discover it.
Groups of 3-4 are most successful at discovering the secret.
David gets this question a lot. Here is his stance on this issue. There are three possibilities:
1) It is real. But if it is, even David would have no way of confirming this for sure.
2) Someone made the whole thing up. It could be the woman who discovered the papers, it could be Calvert Vaux, or it could be anyone in the century in between. And again, David would have no way of knowing.
3) David made it up. And if he did, he wouldn't tell anyone.
- Make sure to get a really good map of Central Park. Maps are available for purchase at the Dairy.
- A pencil, pen, and notebook.
- A PDA is not necessary, but can be very helpful, especially if it accesses the internet. A PDA simplifies implementing the Vigenere Autokey Cipher (which it can do even without internet access if you download software in advance), and is useful for general research.
- Water and food, or money to buy them.
- Sunscreen