Passport to Texas

Nathan Adams and his kiddos searching for Pokémon.

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This is Passport

Since adding a Pokémon Guide to the Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine APP, the publication’s art director, Nathan Adams and his sons, have spent a lot of time in Texas State Parks.

So, every day when I come home, my boys who are six and 10, they want to see what’s been added to the APP–what new parks have been added. And as they flip through the APP on my iPad or my iPhone, [they give me] a laundry list of ‘here’s where we have to go this weekend.’

Through augmented reality, the Pokémon GO APP by Niantic, Inc., populates the outdoors with creatures suited to their locales. Texas Parks and Wildlife’s guide helps to find them in Texas State Parks.

They’re tied to geographic locations. So, if there’s a lot of water in a park, for example, then more water type Pokémon would be there. If there’s a lot of rocks in the park, then you’d have more rock-type Pokémon. So, what you’d find at Hueco Tanks is going to be very different than what you’d find at McKinney Falls.

Parks can harbor some rare Pokémon, but that’s not all.

More than that, going to the park lets you encounter non-virtual creatures who are stunning and beautiful in their own right, and are not pixilated. My children refer to it as Pokémon IRL—or Pokémon in real life. Where suddenly it’s like: ‘Hey, Dad—what is that?’ And it’s caused them to look at other things. It’s caused them to be outside more.

Download the Texas Parks and Wildlife Magazine Pokémon APP for free from the Texas Parks and Wildlife website…and get outside.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.