Pokémon GO Tour Tips: When to Raid, Catch, and Hatch

At 5 a.m. on GO Tour weekend, Cream and I were already raiding. We'd start at a gym by our apartment in Santa Monica and raid our way to the pier, one gym at a time.

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In this guide 9 sections

At 9 a.m., the event spawns started, and we stopped raiding. We walked, caught, and hatched eggs all day. At 5 p.m., the spawns ended and the raids took over again, until about 8 p.m.

That's our whole Pokémon GO Tour strategy, and we have a saying for it: Catch, Hatch, Raid. Our Pokémon GO Tour tips come from playing it at GO Tour Sinnoh in 2024 and GO Tour Unova in 2025, both in Los Angeles, with every add-on and every citywide day.

Pokémon GO Tour Tips: My Quick Answer

• Raid from about 5 a.m. until the event starts. Spin gyms on the way for free Raid Passes.
• Catch and hatch during event hours. In LA that was 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Walk the whole time, with every incubator full.
• Raid again after the event ends, until about 8 p.m.
• On your park day, do the park research first. It has a 5 p.m. deadline.
• Keep moving. Most of our best catches came on foot.

Booking a room for GO Tour? Start with one of these three.

The Catch, Hatch, Raid Plan, Hour by Hour

This is how we play every GO Tour day. The times are LA's. In-person hours stayed the same from 2024 to 2026: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Time	Do this	Why
About 5 a.m. to 9 a.m.	Raid	Raids are up before the event spawns start
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.	Catch and hatch, on foot	Event spawns, every habitat in the city, half-distance eggs
5 p.m. to about 8 p.m.	Raid again	Event spawns stop, but raids keep going
Night	Clean storage, charge, sleep	Tomorrow starts at 5 again

Alola is next, in LA on February 19 to 21, 2027. Its hours aren't out yet. If they change, slide the plan with them. No tickets yet? Start with our Pokémon GO Tour Los Angeles guide: which day to take the park, the add-ons, and the budget.

5 a.m. Until the Event Starts: Raid

Raids are up from about 5 a.m. The event spawns don't start until 9. That's four hours where raiding costs you nothing.

On that walk to the pier in 2025, we did a ton of raids, all in person: Reshiram, Zekrom, and the brand-new Black and White Kyurem, which debuted at GO Tour: Unova.

Your free Raid Passes come from the gyms you spin. On your ticket day, you can get up to nine a day by spinning gyms, or up to 18 with the Raid Lover add-on. In 2026, the add-ons switched on at midnight and ran all weekend, so they covered the early raids too. We still go in with hundreds of bought passes on top (more on that below).

Our Pokémon GO Plus + does the catching we don't have time for. While we raid, it spins stops and auto-catches. Hand-catching with Ultra Balls is always the best. But if you're raiding all the time, you need the auto-catcher, so we set it to throw Ultra Balls too.

Raid in person when you can. In 2026, in-person raids on your ticket and citywide days came with a chance at a special GO Tour Location Background.

On your park day, raid near where you're staying, then leave early so you're in line before the gates open. Haven't booked yet? We'd take Santa Monica over a hotel by the park, and where to stay for GO Tour LA shows what each base costs.

Event Hours: Catch and Hatch on Foot

At 9, stop raiding and start walking, because this is the only window for event spawns.

The city gives you more than the park does. During your ticketed hours, wild Pokémon from every habitat spawn all over Los Angeles. In the park, they're split into habitat zones you walk between. We spend those hours in Santa Monica. Staying somewhere else? We'd play these LA neighborhoods instead, area by area.

Fill every incubator. We hatch every egg we get, so we run 9 to 12 incubators at a time. Eggs that go into an incubator during the event hatch at half the distance, or a quarter with the Egg-thusiast add-on.

Then walk. Hatching eggs at GO Tour only works on foot. The game reportedly stops counting distance above about 6.5 mph (10.5 km/h), so a car or a bike won't do it. An hour standing at a gym hatches nothing.

Spin every PokéStop you pass, too. Event eggs come from stops and gyms. In 2025, the three new shinies from eggs (Maractus, Sigilyph, and Bouffalant) all hatched from 10 km eggs.

After the Event: Raid Until 8 p.m.

At 5, the event spawns end, but the raids keep going, so we raid again until about 8. They're long days.

The game leans into this too. At the 2026 global GO Tour weekend, every five-star raid boss from the week before came back for an evening window, from 6 p.m. to about 8:30 p.m.

One warning for your park day: a drive across LA at 5 p.m. eats these hours. You can still play a little when the freeway slows to a crawl, but you'll lose most of your evening raids. Next time, we'll raid in Pasadena until the traffic clears. How to get home from the Rose Bowl covers leaving without losing the evening.

Why We Play It in That Order

• Event spawns run on a clock. You can raid at 6 a.m., but you can't catch event spawns until the event starts.
• Eggs need your feet. Raiding means standing at a gym and hatching means walking, so you can't do both at once.
• All three fill the GO Pass. In 2026, ticket holders got 1 point per catch, 5 per hatch, and 20 per raid win. Raids earn the most, and you still get them in, before 9 and after 5.

Which Add-Ons Fit Catch, Hatch, Raid

We buy all the add-ons and all the citywide days.

Add-on	2025 price	What you get	Where it fits
Raid Lover	$15	Up to 18 daily Raid Passes from gyms, plus extra XP, Candy, and Candy XL from raids	The 5 a.m. and evening raids
Egg-thusiast	$15	Quarter hatch distance and triple hatch XP, Candy, and Stardust	The walk during event hours
Citywide day	$20	Another day of event spawns and bonuses anywhere in LA	City days, where the plan works best

If you only buy one, pick the half of the plan you'll do more of. Long city walks point to Egg-thusiast. Early mornings and late evenings point to Raid Lover. Both were $15 in 2024, 2025, and 2026, but check the 2027 page when tickets open.¹

How to Prepare for Pokémon GO Tour

Most of our prep happens weeks before the Tour. The rest happens every night of the event.

Weeks Before: Stock Up and Get Moving

• Ultra Balls. I start collecting Ultra Balls the day the last event ends. For Pokémon GO Fest Japan in Tokyo, an eight-day event, I had 10,000 ready. The item bag tops out at 10,500 items, so make room for them.
• Raid Passes and incubators. Get them at the best deal you can. We bought a 7,000-coin incubator bundle and went into the event with hundreds of incubators and Raid Passes. The raid pass bundle we like runs about 5,500 coins. Bundles change all the time, so compare before you buy. Coin bundles on the Pokémon GO Web Store come with bonus coins, and it carries web-only boxes too.
• Your legs. You need to physically prepare. Most people aren't used to this much walking and standing. Build up some long walks before the trip.
• Your version. In 2024, the Diamond or Pearl badge you picked in LA stayed with you through the global event. If the Tour asks you to choose, decide at home so you're not choosing in line.

The Night Before, and Every Night After

• Clear your storage. Do it before the event, then again each night for the next day. We go in with a few thousand open Pokémon slots.
• Use a search string. We clean storage between days with a search string. One like age0&!shiny&!legendary&!mythical&!4*&!3*&!lucky&!costume&!locationbackground&!specialbackground lists today's catches that aren't shiny, legendary, mythical, three or four stars, lucky, in a costume, or on a background. It won't protect a nundo, so look before you transfer.
• Read the event page. Know the raid bosses, the habitats, the research, and anything new.
• Plan your trades. Ticket holders got up to six Special Trades on their ticket day, at half the Stardust. Bring the Pokémon you want to trade.
• Charge everything. Phone, GO Plus +, and battery pack. The battery pack we use most is linked on our Amazon storefront. The park has its own battery and bag rules, so check what to bring to GO Tour before you pack.

The First-Timer Mistakes We See Every Year

1. Leaving the Park Research for Later

Your park day has research you can only finish inside the park. Do it first. We've learned this one the hard way, every single year. Our Rose Bowl park day plan starts it at 9 a.m., while it's still cool.

2. Raiding Through Event Hours

It's easy to just sit around and raid, but you're missing out on so much by doing that. The raids will still be there at 5 p.m., and the event spawns won't.

3. Standing Still

Our best catches and moments have all come when we're moving. Walking from Santa Monica to Venice Beach is always fun. So is heading into downtown Santa Monica. For gameplay, Santa Monica is up there with Tokyo. The pier-to-Venice walk is the heart of our Santa Monica Pokémon GO route.

One of our favorite group moments happened on one of those walks. On a city day during Unova in 2025, our whole group was on the Third Street Promenade when we all got a nundo Audino. A nundo is the opposite of a hundo: zero attack, zero defense, and zero HP. We called it out, and then came the fun part: checking whether anyone's was shiny.

Getting Through a 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. Day

Our breaks were when we ate, and we ate when we felt like it. Usually that meant breakfast at our place, then lunch and dinner out. We ate a lot of Pier Burger.

That's the trick to a 15-hour day: your breaks still count. Sit down for lunch and raid from the table.

When to Change the Plan

These GO Tour LA tips work at any GO Tour, with a few changes:

• Playing the global weekend instead? The 2026 global event ran from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time, with the evening raids after it. Shift every block by an hour.
• Bringing kids? Lots of families come to GO Tour. Skip the 5 a.m. start, and give the kids the middle of the day, when the spawns are best.
• Only doing the park day? Do the park research first, catch and hatch in the habitats, and save your raiding for before and after.

Is the 5 a.m. Alarm Worth It?

Yes. The early hours are free raid time, so the whole event window stays open for catching and hatching. It makes for a 15-hour day, so take your breaks at the table and get to bed early.

Next Steps for Your GO Tour Trip

• Pokémon GO Tour Los Angeles: The Complete Guide
• GO Tour Park Day at the Rose Bowl: What to Expect
• Pokémon GO in Santa Monica: The Best Places to Play
• Pokémon GO Fest Japan: What to Expect
• Pokémon GO in Tokyo: The Best Spots to Play