On Creating A Route

A while ago, I made a route in Pokemon GO. However, it never appeared in-game, and appears to be stuck in limbo. So, the other day, I gave up on ever seeing that route, and decided to make another one. I could have done this sooner, but for a long time, I was experiencing crashes when trying to start the route creation process, so I basically gave up. However, in the mean time, there had been multiple bug fixes, so I decided to try again.

The route I decided to make was around my local park. It’s not a very long route, capping out at 723m, but it’s a start. The path I decided to take was pretty simple as well. My plan was to do a nice figure eight around the park, since just going around it probably would have been under the minimum of 500m.

To make a route, it is pretty simple. You set a starting point next to a Pokestop, select an end point and then just walk to that end point. You can change the end point during the creation of the path to that route, but if you want to change the starting point, then you need to delete the whole route then start again. Creating a route requires using Adventure Sync, which is ironic because if you have Adventure Sync on whenever you walk an already-existing route, the route breaks and constantly pauses. So you have to turn off Adventure Sync in order to walk a route that you already created for it to actually count.

Walking is pretty simple, but I find it odd how wobbly the path you create can get. As you walk, you can see the route being created behind you, but it’s hard for it to just be straight, it might have a slight bend to it or something. The route does somewhat autocorrect itself, but the initial creation is rather bumpy. However, the final product is a lot smoother, even if it doesn’t directly follow the roads and paths you might be walking down. There are times where the route seems to stop recording, but it does eventually snap back into place.

Once you reach your desired end point, you can then finish recording and add a name and description to the route. I personally just wrote something simple, calling my new route “A Loop Around the Park”, with a brief description that it’s a nice quiet park in the middle of town. What’s nice though is that you can pick a colour for your route – I picked yellow, because of course I did. Once all that’s done, you can send in your route and, well, all you can do is wait.

And you may be waiting a long time. My original route that I made, it’s still pending, and it’s been a couple of months. What amazes me though was that this new route was approved in about 15 minutes. I actually missed this at first, because I was busy opening up my little account so I could do some research and maybe a raid. While the raid was horrible (I am NOT spending a raid pass on a Youngoos raid!), I was immediately greeted with a notification, that a new route was available. That new route was my own freshly made route.

So of course, I did my route, which was a nice little loop. However, I couldn’t find my Zygarde Cell. I paused the route and spent a good ten minutes wandering around, seeing if it had spawned somewhere a bit off from the route. But eventually I gave up, because it was getting dark. So I’m still stuck on that Zygarde research, and probably will never be able to get even Zygarde 50%, let alone 100%.

I suppose, at least I have a route now, that is within reasonable walking distance. I might try and create some more routes too, but it all depends on the weather. And maybe one day I’ll find a Zygarde Cell…