In New Horizons, many seasonal plans are found only in balloons. Given the very limited availability time of some of these sets of ACNH DIY recipes, it is necessary to organize effectively to pick them all up before they go back to oblivion for a year. Do you know all the tricks for hunting balloons?
Predicting The Arrival of Balloons
To not miss the balloons, you must first know where and when to find them! They have a chance to appear above the sea every five minutes, minutes ending in 4 or 9, and reach shore one minute later. So you'll see the balloons approaching the shore at minutes 0 or 5 (so for example at 1:55, 15:20, etc.)
In addition, they always arrive from the same direction during the day, and on the other side at night, starting at about 6pm. If you don't know which way the wind is blowing at home, one trick is to look at the direction of the smoke coming out of a chimney. In the photo below, for example, we see that the smoke is moving to the right, which means that the balloons are coming from the left.
So, if you're not inside a building at minutes 4 and 9 and you're walking the beach on the right side, up and down, every minute ending with 0 and 5, you won't miss any balloons!
Building a Wall
Tired of running? For even more efficient farming of balloons, it is possible to build a wall. When the ball hits an obstacle, it descends south until it finds a passage; By building a wall that goes down to the bottom, you will force all balloons to go the same way.
Warning: there are few objects large enough to block balloons, and most are rare or expensive. The easiest to get are the prison gate (fabricable with 5 iron nuggets if you learned the plan) and the climbing wall (which costs 4,300 Animal Crossing Bells). Expect that you will need about 15-20 to cover the entire length of the beach.
Once you have the necessary items, place them next to each other, leaving half a tile between each one (so you don't have to pass). If you have to get around something, put the next wall further from the sea, and no closer, otherwise the balloon will slip between the two.
Is there a river mouth on your beach? If you have a good one near the beach, it will act as a wall, since the balloons cannot fall on it. Otherwise, you temporarily crush an earthly passage to continue the wall.
Wait Patiently
Once your wall is mounted and functional, no need to run! You can sit at the bottom of the wall and turn up the sound of the console to hear the characteristic wind noise of a passing balloon.
Since balloons don't necessarily appear every five minutes and don't all contain seasonal plans, you'll still have to be patient and lucky, but the wall will make the process much easier!