Waldo hides at the beach, the zoo, the airport, in Hollywood, in museums and more. But what about Columbia?

Until the end of July, Waldo, the beloved cartoon book character, is hiding out in various local businesses in Columbia. A 6-inch cut-out of Waldo, decked out in his signature black glasses, red-and-white-striped long-sleeved shirt and beanie, is waiting to be found in each store.

Don’t know where to start? First, pick up a passport search list at Queen Takes Book, the host store of the scavenger hunt. At each participating store, once Waldo is found, the employees will stamp the passport book.

Find Waldo Local is an annual, nationwide event co-sponsored by Candlewick Press — the American publishing company for “Where’s Waldo” — and the American Booksellers Association. This year, 310 American Booksellers Association member bookstores are participating.

“Where’s Waldo” is the North American version of “Where’s Wally,” a British children’s puzzles book series that started publishing in 1987. Martin Handford, an English illustrator, is the creator of the series.

Looking for Waldo across each two-page spread quickly made the book series popular, as the search can be both frustrating and rewarding.

Katie McNally, owner of Queen Takes Book in Columbia, knew it would be the host store even before its opening. After a year of musing with her husband, the couple opened the indie bookstore in early April.

Queen Takes Book is “cultivating a cozy, comfortable atmosphere,” McNally said.

The bookstore offers selections of nonfiction, fiction, essays, science and nature, cookbooks, poetry, a revolving display table that currently is Olympics-themed, local authors and more. There is also a staff picks section that “gives customers a chance to get to know the team. Find their literary matchmaker,” McNally said.

There’s also a children’s section, of course. Which is where Waldo was hiding on Tuesday.

When a child finds the little Waldo cutout in the fluffy carpet, they are allowed to hide him in a new spot.

Queen Takes Book is one of 23 local businesses participating in the scavenger hunt.

“Waldo is bringing some attention and recognition to local shops here,” McNally said.

Once at least eight Waldos are found, participants head back to Queen Takes Book to receive a Waldo sticker. If they find 15, they will be entered in a drawing for the grand prize, which is Waldo-themed of course.

The scavenger hunt is open to all ages.

Whether you participate or not, everyone is welcome to attend the celebration party at Queen Takes Book on Aug. 3, where the grand prize winner will be announced. There will also be other giveaways, games and food.

Can’t make it out to Columbia to find Waldo? Where’s Waldo events are also being hosted by Growing Minds Bookstore in Catonsville, Rudolph Girls Books in downtown Westminster, People’s Book in Takoma Park and Curious Iguana in Frederick.

Here are some of the places where we stopped to find Waldo recently in Columbia.

Wild Birds Unlimited

Just steps away from Queen Takes Book is Wild Birds Unlimited, where shoppers are transported into a serene wilderness scene. But hidden among the birdhouses, bird baths and bird feeders, is a 6-inch Waldo.

Jess and I walked into the store with a mission and were hit with the smell of birdseed and chirps playing over the speakers. We weaved our way through the store, often getting distracted by the animal-themed hats and knickknacks.

After what felt like an almost embarrassing amount of time searching for Waldo and his iconic stripes, one of the store workers called out, “Colder!”

We rerouted to the opposite side of the store and she yelled, “Ice cold!”

Making one last attempt to find Waldo among the sea of bird feed, we looked in the middle of the store and got confirmation that we were “warmer.”

And just like that, at eye level, Jess spotted Waldo hanging out in between woodpecker food and bug, nut and berry bird feed.

We brought our passport card to the front and the shopkeeper signed it, adding a drawing of a duck. And as part of finding Waldo, we got to hide him in a new location — so if you went searching for Waldo later on Tuesday, maybe you found where we hid him.

— Abby Zimmardi

Oh, What A Cake!

The savory smell of cake batter welcomed me when I walked into Oh, What A Cake!

I spied plain brownies, pecan brownies and lemon raspberry brownies in the display cases. I wanted to try all the cupcake flavors, like the lemon blueberry and butter vanilla.

Then I remembered Abby and I needed to focus on the task at hand: finding Waldo. It didn’t take long to spy his red-and-white cap hiding on the twirling stand of birthday candles.

The Columbia bakery celebrated its 15th year in business this past December. Besides it’s single serving brownies and cupcakes, Oh, What A Cake! bakes wedding cakes and cakes for special events, such as birthdays, baby showers and First Communions.

We celebrated finding Waldo with a free sample of a small bite of vanilla chocolate cake.

—Jess Nocera

SO Original

As a crochet lover myself, I was excited to check out SO Original, a yarn shop that I never knew existed. And apparently I wasn’t the only one.

Store owner Lana Lester said there were “too many people that didn’t know I was here. Three to four dozen people came in [to look for Waldo] that otherwise wouldn’t have seen me.”

The Waldo campaign is bringing awareness to the neighborhood, she said, including her yarn shop, which has been in Columbia for three years. Waldo is also bringing children and adults who all want to find him, where he’s been sitting in the same spot for the whole month.

Lester said kids always find Waldo faster than adults do, which I can personally attest.

Jess and I snaked around the tall wired racks brimming with yarn, looking high and low for our familiar friend. The entire color spectrum of yarn of all kinds live in Lester’s shop. Buckets of yarn sat on the ground, Styrofoam heads with hand-knitted and -crocheted beanies lived on top of the racks. There was so much yarn I couldn’t see through the wire racks!

The shop is “yarn for snobs,” Lester joked.

Jess and I started to feel a little defeated, but took comfort in knowing that other adults have also struggled to find Waldo. After we searched what felt like the entire store, we took a glance in a corner and spotted Waldo smiling at us.

He really is good at hiding!

In our moment of triumph, we completely forgot to ask Lester to sign our card. Don’t be like us.

Happy Waldo searching!

— Abby Zimmardi