Walkthroughs

How and where to find rare Pokemon in Pokemon GO

Region specific Pokemon! 10km eggs! Crowdsourced maps!

How and where to find rare Pokemon in Pokemon GO
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| Pokemon GO

If you wanna be the very best (like no one ever was), you're going to want to fill up your Pokemon GO Pokedex with all 151 critters from the Kanto region.

And that ain't easy. Especially as six of them (Ditto, Articuno, Zapdos, Moltres, Mewtwo, and Mew) are impossible to get, some are essentially locked to specific continents, and others only hang out in certain areas.

To help you catch 'em all, as the great scholar Ash Ketchum once said, we've put together a list of top tips for finding rare Pokemon in the game. So read up, charge your battery, slap on some sunscreen, and head out.

You are meant to play Pokemon GO with friends, and we got you covered!

Boost your trainer level Pokemon

It seems as though there is a correlation between your trainer level, and the power and rarity of the Pokemon you stumble across. So go grab some experience points.

Experience is collected when you catch a Pokemon, evolve a critter, hatch an egg, check a Pokestop, or defeat a Pokemon in training or at a gym. You'll get a bonus 500 experience points for registering a new Pokemon in your Pokedex.

Hatch eggs

Eggs, which are collected at Pokestops, hatch into Pokemon after you walk (and we mean walk - the game isn't fooled by cars, trains, and bikes) a certain distance. That much is obvious.

What you might not know is that the eggs that force you to walk further distances contain much rarer Pokemon. In a two kilometre egg, the best you can hope for is a Pikachu, a Jigglypuff, or a Clefairy.

Five kilometre eggs are better, containing rare critters like Porygon, Tangela, and Koffing. But it's the 10km eggs that you really want as they contain hard to find monsters like Onix, Chansey, Electabuzz, and Kabuto.

Check out Serebii for a complete listing.

Oh, and two kilometres is just over a mile and it will take about half an hour to walk that far. Five kilometres is about three miles and will take roughly 45 minutes. And 10km is roughly six miles and should take you about two hours.

Evolve Pokemon Lickitung

If you've played Pokemon before, you know the power of Evolution. A weak fish that can do little more than flop about in the water can - through time and dedication - turn into a fearsome dragon capable of wrecking the Elite Four.

The same goes in Pokemon GO. When you catch a Pokemon, transfer the Pokemon to Professor Willow, or hatch an egg, you will get candy related to that specific Pokemon. Feed those sweeties to the critter and it will eventually evolve.

So while catching a Marowak in the wild might be tough, grabbing a Cubone and evolving it might not be quite so tricky.

Read the map

There are lots of rumours, myths, and hard-to-confirm ideas about where Pokemon spawn. Do ghosts spawn in graveyards? Do electric monsters spawn near power stations?

All that stuff will be discovered over time, as more trainers play the game and record their findings. But, for now, we know that the actual in-game map reveals some helpful information in its colour.

You'll notice light green areas everywhere, which are grassy biomes, while dark green areas are reserved for forests and community parks. Grey areas and light blue areas are industrial biomes, and are found in cities. And blue areas are obviously water.

Different types of Pokemon spawn in these different areas. And while it's far from impossible to find a water Pokemon on dry land, the chances of finding wet critters rises when you go near the sea or a lake. So use the map and make sure you're visiting lots of different biomes.

Go to the city City

In general, rural areas make it hard to find Pokemon. Maybe it's because of the lack of industrial biomes. Some reckon that the number of people playing Pokemon GO in one area drives up the number and rarity of critters.

Whatever the reason, get on the bus and go into the city for a while to mix up your monsters and find something new.

Go to another country

Okay, so this one's a bit more ambitious, but bear with us. A small number of Pokemon are reported to be exclusive to - or, at least, practically impossible to find outside of - certain continents.

The bison-like Tauros Pokemon is easy to find in the United States and Canada, but there have been almost no confirmed sightings elsewhere in the world. Trainers who have found Kangaskhan are always living in Australia. And while Mr. Mime is European, for some reason, Farfetch'd is an Asian bird.

Once trading is added to the game, getting these rare monsters should hopefully be a little... less expensive.

Use incense and lures Machamp

You can drop an incense to attract Pokemon to come closer to you. This basically just makes the monsters on the "Nearby" list come closer, so you won't suddenly have a Snorlax land on your head if there wasn't one around anyway.

Lures are more powerful. They can be placed on a PokeStop and will attract critters for 30 minutes. Plus, other players get the benefit too so you'll get a fuzzy feeling in your tummy for helping others.

Use these unofficial maps

Players around the world are now collaborating on crowdsourced maps, which show you where rare monsters have been found. Check out Pokemon Radar and Pearl Share to see for yourself.

Now, these maps are never going to be perfect. Players will leave crummy information, and the spawns change so much that the info may be completely out of date by the time you make the trip. But it's worth taking a look if you're after a specific monster.

Ask friends Gyarados

Are pals playing Pokemon GO nearby? Ask them where they found hard-to-find monsters.

Remember that the Pokedex entry for each Pokemon you catch shows you a map of where you found that critter, so don't take "uhm, can't remember" for an answer.

Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer