Pokémon Go Gym Map Guide: Find Raid Battles In Seconds

Pokémon Go has steadily improved. Niantic has added new generations of Pokémon, weather conditions, and even a complete overhaul of the Gym battling system. Battling against Pokémon left by other trainers, feeding friendly ones berries or catching epic Legendaries at EX Raids turn you from a random dude who can’t look up from his phone into a true trainer. Endless trips to your nearest park to check if Kyogre, Ho-Oh or any of the other badasses show up can be a bit stressful, but thankfully the internet has found a solution.

Gym maps use Pokémon Go’s API to track a number of useful pieces of information. Knowing which team owns the gym or which Pokémon has appeared for a Raid allows you to spend your time gaming instead of walking around accomplishing nothing. Maps that track every Pokémon’s location were popular when the game first launched, but were quickly banned by Niantic since their servers couldn’t handle the strain. These gym trackers have either flown under Niantic’s radar or aren’t killing Niantic’s bandwidth.

Here are my favorite Pokémon Go Gym maps, all on PC because most (or all) mobile versions seem to either function sporadically or are scams.

GymHuntr- The simplest but most versatile of the bunch, GymHuntr tracks pretty much everything in a gym. Gym bosses have their raid level, moveset and base CP, which allows you to quickly figure out what is the best monster to use. You can only scan an area once every minute since this is a free service and their servers can only have so much strain on them before they snap.

NYCPokeMap- If you’re outside the five boroughs of New York City, this map is pretty much useless. For those of us trapped inside the mad machine that is this city, you’ll be able to find Gym Raids with ease. You can toggle the sidebar to check on teams, levels of raids and bosses. It’s not as pretty as some of the others, but it gets the job done.

Pokémon Go Map- Like the others, but has a better user interface and also includes Pokestop locations.