We were not disappointed!
We all won our first Tyranitar raid on Day 1 of the trip with help from a couple locals in Litchfield, IL, when we happened upon the raid on our way back to our hotel after dinner. The very next day we won our second in Mount Vernon, IL, again with the help of a few locals. Between those two raids, three of us caught our first Tyranitar, one of my daughters caught both and one caught neither. We didn't find another Tyranitar raid during our playing time on the trip but we did we participate in our largest raid group so far, on Day 4, when 14 players came together for a Lapras. This raid also led us to a museum we were not planning to visit – PoGo actually can help you to discover and explore new places!
We were not able to use our one free raid pass a day throughout the trip. We had to skip a few because we didn't have time or there just wasn't a raid near us when we did have time – simply finding gyms in the more rural areas was a challenge. When we did happen to be playing in the right place at the right time for a raid, we didn't always win – sometimes it was just the five of us against a Level 4, hoping other players would show up, sometimes there we technical difficulties. We did win most of the raids we played, though, and that was fun.
The Pokémon GO 1st Anniversary event was announced on July 6th. We spotted the limited edition Pikachu wearing Ash's hat the next day and tracked it down a dirt road to catch it on Day 7 of our trip.
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| Pokémon GO 1st Anniversary Pikachu (image via in-game AR camera) |
We later found several more but spotting that first one was exciting.
Even more exciting, and probably one of the highlights of the trip, was catching a Corsola! We had been on the lookout for the region-specific Pokémon since we crossed latitude 31N and, literally, as we pulled onto our beach front hotel's property on Day 8, a Corsola popped up as being nearby and we were able to track it down and catch it. The kids had been talking about catching a Corsola for weeks before we left so this was a thrill (and a relief – thank goodness we found one)!
We collected gym badges all along our route to commemorate our trip and we had some fun creating themed gyms – like when we placed all ghost-type Pokémon in a ghost town gym.
Overall, playing PoGO was a great additional activity on our road trip and it was fantastic for the budget since it didn't cost us a thing.