I went on a 'Pokemon GO' safari with dozens of people in Central Park - here's what it was like
The safari began at the southeast corner of Central Park by Grand Army Plaza on a pleasant (but very hot) Sunday afternoon.
The corner was a fitting place to start because it's one of the best spots to catch Pokémon in the entire city. There are several closely positioned Pokéstops with lures going constantly. Rare Pokémon, like Vaporeon, have been known to spawn there.
Our guide and "Pokémon GO" expert, Adam Wennick, had posted on Reddit that he was hosting a free safari a few days earlier. The tour was fully booked in a matter of minutes.
This is Adam. He's a level 21 trainer in "Pokémon GO" and professional tour guide. He "painstakingly" mapped out where all of the best Pokémon spawn in the park and promised to share his knowledge with our group.
People started congregating about 30 minutes before the safari was scheduled to start. Only 60 spots were available on the tour, but some people who hadn't registered said they planned to tag along anyway.
Most of the group wore name tags written in their team color (red for Valor, blue for Mystic, and yellow for Instinct).
The game's servers were down, which had people nervous that we weren't going to be able to catch any Pokémon that day.
After standing around for about 40 minutes, we realized that the game's servers might not come back online soon.
We weren't going to let the game's severs stop us from exploring. So off we went!
We left the hotspot of Pokétops at the corner of 59th street and Central Park to venture into the park and (hopefully) catch them all.
Since the game's servers had been down for nearly an hour at this point, people in the group were concerned we wouldn't be able to catch Pokémon during the tour.
Luckily, Adam had memorized all of the hot areas for catching specific types of Pokémon. I noticed some people in the group taking notes as we walked.
A company called Bolt handed out free battery packs before the tour started, so pretty much everyone had them plugged in to keep their phones juiced up for the day.
Most of us were frantically refreshing our phones as we followed Adam past the Central Park Zoo. Adam kept his cool, but I couldn't stop thinking about the Pokémon I was missing out on.
With the game down, I decided to look around and take in the nature around us as we walked. Most people in the group kept trying to load the app.
As we ventured deeper into the park, I noticed that several people had already abandoned the tour. The servers still weren't up. A feeling of uneasiness began to sweep over the group.
We realized that "Pokémon GO" was experiencing a widespread outage that could last for hours. The game had just been made available in Canada that day, and there were reports that hackers had taken the servers down again.
Adam occasionally stopped the group to point out where certain types of Pokémon tend to spawn. (This particular stop is apparently a hot stop for Pikachus.)
I couldn't help thinking about all of the potentially rare Pokémon I was missing as we walked.
Adam's co-guide wasn't a Pokémon expert, but she knew a lot about the history of Central Park. She took the opportunity to explain landmarks and historic areas to us while we waited for the game to come back online.
Some of us were able to log back in as we walked past the Bethesda Fountain and around the park's main lake.
Most of the group remained buried in their phones as we made our way to the Conservatory Pond on the upper east side of the park. I overheard some people trading tips about the game and talking about what they had caught the day before.
Adam told us that the pond is a "sanctuary" for bird Pokémon. Since we couldn't catch any ourselves, he said "for now, you'll have to trust me."
We continued up the park towards The Metropolitan Museum of Art to another spot on Adam's map. Someone paid this guy $1 to do a cartwheel while we waited for the game to work.
As we walked past the Great Lawn, the game's servers started working again! Everyone started cheering and calling out the names of nearby Pokémon that had suddenly spawned.
Everyone stopped walking to catch Pokémon next to a couple of Pokéstops near the south side of the Great Lawn.
I started catching some good Pokémon, including a high CP Tangela.
The group had a newfound energy now that the game was working. People started talking to each other more and yelling out when a rare Pokémon would appear.
Lots of water Pokémon, including Magikarp, spawned near Turtle Pond and the Belvedere Castle below the Great Lawn.
By now we had walked over a mile into the center of the park. Luckily, there were plenty of Pokéstops throughout the park to replenish our items as we went.
We weren't the only ones playing "Pokémon GO." I noticed plenty of people glued to their phones as we walked by.
I made sure to activate a Lucky Egg so that I would earn double experience points while I played.
Catch that Golbat!
We stopped at another spot with two active lures. I caught close to a dozen Pokémon here in under five minutes.
Sometimes there were more Pokémon players than non-Pokémon players in areas of the park.
At one point these three guys walked past our group and yelled "TEAM INSTINCT!"
Now that the game was working, it was practically raining Pokémon. Adam shared some pro tips with us as we played, like how to pick what Eevee evolves into.
Oh look, an Eevee!
Got him.
We finished the tour at the American Museum of Natural History on the upper west side of the park. Adam told us that it was a popular place for Charmanders to spawn, but I didn't catch one.
The remaining Pokémon trainers posed for a picture to end the two-hour tour. We lost close to half of the group at Pokéstops throughout the park and walked about two miles.
While most of the group were teenagers who heard about the safari on Reddit, there were older (and younger) people on the tour too.
Even with the game down half of the time, Adam was a great tour guide. He plans to host more "Pokémon GO" safaris in Central Park. Future events will probably cost money to attend, but the proceeds will go to charity.
If you're interested in going on one of Adam's safaris in the future, be sure to follow New York Tour1 on Facebook and on Twitter for updates.
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