Every mystery island guide tells you Tarantula Island is “rare” and the money-rock island is “uncommon.” None of them tell you it’s a 2 percent roll versus a 5 percent one — or that the island most players call the “gold island” isn’t the actual rarest rock island at all. The real numbers come from a 2020 data extraction of the game’s own files by researcher Ash Wolf (known as Ninji), and they’ve never needed an update because Nook Miles Ticket tours haven’t changed since launch [1].
This guide lists all 20 island layouts with their exact spawn weight, what’s actually on them, and a straight answer on which ones are worth burning a ticket for.
Quick Start: How to Actually Get a Mystery Island Tour
If you’ve never redeemed a ticket before, here’s the fastest path from zero to island-hopping:
- Have Resident Services (not the tent) built — the Nook Stop terminal inside is where tickets are bought. New players should confirm this milestone in our ACNH beginner’s guide first.
- Bank 2,000 Nook Miles per ticket — that’s the flat price every time, no bulk discount [4]. Our Nook Miles guide covers the fastest ways to stack miles if you’re short.
- At the Nook Stop terminal, choose “Redeem Nook Miles,” then “Nook Miles Ticket.”
- Walk to the airport and hand your ticket to Orville.
- Your island type is rolled the instant the plane takes off — not before, so there’s no way to preview or reroll once you’re airborne.
- Bring a full toolkit before you fly: several of the higher-value layouts are locked behind a ladder or a vaulting pole, and you can’t craft either mid-tour if you forgot them [1].
All 20 Mystery Island Types and Their Real Spawn Odds
Ninji’s file extraction grouped the game’s mystery tour pool into 20 weighted entries that add up to exactly 100 percent per flight [1]. Five of those entries are visually near-identical “standard” layouts — same native fruit, same plain rocks, no gimmick — so almost half of every ticket you spend lands you somewhere forgettable. That’s the detail no ranked listicle mentions, because none of them work from the actual weight table.
| Island Type | Spawn Odds | What’s There | Worth a Ticket? |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Standard” layout (5 near-identical variants) | 45% | Native fruit, plain rocks, occasional ladder cliff | Skip — only useful off-season for basic materials |
| Bamboo | 10% | Every tree is bamboo | Yes, if you’re stocking up for bamboo furniture; otherwise skip |
| Fruit-swap | 9% | 19 trees of a fruit type different from your home island | Yes, once — grab a 6th fruit type for the money-tree trick |
| Curly River | 5% | Winding river, native fruit, river insects | Skip unless you need river-specific bugs |
| Multi-Waterfall | 5% | Layered cliffs, several waterfalls, ladder required | Skip — scenery, not resources |
| Trash | 5% | Fish are all junk items, some water insects | Skip — unless you’re closing out a fossil/junk collection |
| Money Rock (6 rocks) | 5% | Six rocks that all pay Bells when hit | Yes — guaranteed Bells with a good axe/shovel combo |
| Big Fish | 3% | Only large-shadow fish: tuna, marlin, oarfish, black bass | Yes, for fish-collection completionists |
| Tarantula | 2% | Tarantulas spawn continuously, 7 PM-4 AM only [6] | Yes — one of the best Bells-per-minute tours in the game |
| Rare Flower | 2% | Hybrid flowers grow wild, no breeding required | Yes — saves weeks of manual crossbreeding |
| Money Rock (7 rocks) | 2% | Seven Bell-paying rocks, requires vaulting pole | Yes — the better of the two money-rock rolls |
| Hardwood Tree | 2% | All hardwood trees, tree-dwelling insects, ladder required | Yes, if you’re short on hardwood for furniture |
| Big Fish (variant 2) | 2% | Large fish only, vaulting pole required | Niche — same value as the 3% Big Fish roll, just rarer |
| Hardwood Tree (variant 2) | 1% | Same as Hardwood Tree above | Skip — no benefit over the 2% version |
| Fins | 1% | Largest finned fish only, ladder + vaulting pole required | Completionist only |
| Gold (true) | 1% | One rock, 8 gold nuggets, at roughly 10,000 Bells each | Yes — the single biggest per-visit payout on the list |
The mix-up worth clearing up: the island most players call “the gold island” is usually the 5 percent Money Rock layout, because it’s the one they actually land on. The true Gold island — a single rock that drops 8 gold nuggets instead of Bells — is five times rarer at 1 percent [1]. If you’ve farmed money rocks for hours without ever seeing gold nuggets, that’s not bad luck. It’s the correct outcome of a 1-in-100 roll.
Which Islands Are Actually Worth Burning a Ticket On
A ticket costs 2,000 Nook Miles whether you land somewhere useful or not, so the real question isn’t “is this island good” — it’s “is the expected payout worth the miles I could’ve spent elsewhere.” Two islands clear that bar by a wide margin.
Tarantula Island is the strongest Bells-per-ticket play in the base game. Tarantulas sell for 8,000 Bells each at Nook’s Cranny, and getting bitten wakes you back up at the island’s own dock instead of sending you home — so one 2 percent roll can turn into 15-20 catches before the tour ends [6]. In my own runs, a single Tarantula tour reliably clears six figures in Bells, which no other 2-percent-or-rarer island matches for raw speed.
The true Gold island wins on payout-per-rock rather than payout-per-minute: 8 nuggets at roughly 10,000 Bells apiece is close to 80,000 Bells from one island, no tools beyond a shovel and axe. It’s rarer (1 percent vs. 2 percent), so treat it as a bonus if you roll into it rather than something to farm for directly.
If you’re not chasing Bells, use this decision order instead: need a 6th fruit type for the money-tree trick → fly until you hit a Fruit-swap island and stop after one visit. Need hybrid flowers without weeks of breeding → prioritize Rare Flower. Everything else on the list — Trash, Curly River, Multi-Waterfall, the duplicate 1% variants — is either scenery or a marginal resource top-up, not worth chaining tickets over.
The math behind why this matters: since the roll is independent every single flight, spending five tickets doesn’t get you five different results in proportion to the odds — a 1 percent island can still show up twice in a row, and a 45 percent “standard” run of bad luck can eat ten tickets straight. Weighted odds describe the long-run average, not any single session, so don’t treat a cold streak on Gold or Tarantula as a sign the system is broken. It’s the same reason a coin can land heads five times in a row without being rigged.
Can You Get a New Villager on Any Mystery Island?
Yes, but only under two conditions: you need at least one vacant house plot on your island, and you must be under the 10-villager cap. When both are true, every mystery tour — regardless of which of the 20 layouts you land on — has a chance to spawn one camping villager you can invite home. Once either condition fails, no island type will produce one, no matter how many tickets you burn [3]. For the actual selection odds and how to influence which species and personality shows up, see our villager hunting guide.
Because villager spawns are independent of island type, your priorities should split by what kind of player you are:
| Player Type | Priority When Redeeming Tickets |
|---|---|
| New player | Confirm you have a vacant plot before flying at all — tickets spent while full waste the villager roll entirely. Grab any Money Rock or Fruit-swap island you land on for early Bells. |
| Casual player | Fly opportunistically, but stop and fully clear Tarantula, Rare Flower, or Gold islands the moment you land on one — they’re too infrequent to skip. |
| Hardcore / Bells optimizer | Chain tickets specifically at night during tarantula season; treat every non-Tarantula, non-Gold roll as a sunk cost and fly again immediately. |
| Completionist | Track which of the 15 distinct layouts (20 raw entries, 5 duplicated) you’ve documented — Fins and the 1% Hardwood Tree variant are the two most likely to be missing from a collection. |
Verified against the base ACNH 2.0 mystery-tour system (Nook Miles Ticket / Dodo Airlines). These spawn weights come from a one-time file extraction rather than an ongoing live-service system, and Nintendo hasn’t touched Mystery Tour mechanics since the 2.0 update, so they haven’t shifted since. This is a separate system from Kapp’n’s boat tours, which use their own 1,000-Mile pricing and a different, calendar-gated island pool [5] — don’t mix the two odds tables.
FAQ
Is it worth flying to a “standard” island at all?
Only if you specifically need a common resource you’re out of, like extra rocks for a DIY project. At a combined 45 percent spawn weight, you’ll hit one almost every other flight regardless of what you’re hunting for, so there’s no reason to chase one on purpose — you’ll get plenty by accident.
Can I reroll a bad island without losing my ticket?
No. The roll happens the moment Orville’s plane takes off, and leaving the island early still consumes the ticket. The only way to “reroll” is to fly again with a fresh ticket, which is why stacking a surplus of Nook Miles before a farming session matters more than any in-the-moment strategy.
Why does everyone call the 5 percent island the “gold” one?
Because it’s the one most people actually land on. At 5 percent it’s five times more common than the true Gold island, so most players’ entire mental model of “the gold island” is built from Bell-paying rocks they’ve seen many times, not the far rarer nugget-dropping rock most have never hit.
Should I save tickets for tarantula season specifically?
If Bells-per-ticket is your goal, yes. Outside of tarantula season and outside 7 PM-4 AM, that 2 percent slot in the pool still exists but can’t produce a usable tarantula spawn, so you’d be flying into a dead roll for that specific strategy.
Can I tell what island type I’ll get before I fly?
No — there’s no in-game preview, and nothing in the ticket-purchase or boarding flow hints at the result. The layout is decided the moment the plane leaves the runway, and there’s no way to back out and reroll without spending a second ticket.
Sources
- Ash Wolf (“Ninji”), Mystery Tour Islands Guide — direct game-file datamine of all 20 island spawn weights
- Game8, Mystery Island Tour Guide
- Game8, How to Get New Villagers to Move In
- Thonky, Nook Miles Tickets
- TheGamer, Every Kapp’n Mystery Island, Ranked
- Game8, Infinite Tarantula Island guide
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.