You can get Dratini in the Safari Zone. Head to Fuschia City and pay the fee to join the Safari Game. Bring a Super Rod to fish for Dratini in any body of water inside the Zone.

Fuchsia City’s Safari Zone

Dratini can only be found in one area in the game – Fuchsia City’s Safari Zone.

Head north from the town Poké Center until you find the Safari Zone entrance.

Go inside and pay the fee to play the Safari Game.

The Safari Game operates on a timed basis, but since Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen don’t have in-game clocks, the timer is based on the number of steps you take inside the area. After 500 steps, the safari game ends.

With this in mind, it is recommended to start your search for Dratini on the first body of water you can see – this helps you fish for an unlimited amount of time until you find Dratini, provided you don’t take up any steps in doing so.

Make sure you have a Super Rod before getting inside the Safari Zone. You can find a body of water just ahead of you from the safari entrance. You can now start looking for Dratini here.

You might encounter other water Pokémon here before you find Dratini. You can even encounter its evolved form, Dragonair.

Dratini has a higher encounter rate than Dragonair though, with a 10% chance to encounter it after hooking a Pokémon.

Catching Dratini

Now that you’ve encountered Dratini, the challenge lies in catching it.

It’s a lot more difficult to catch unique Pokémon in the Safari Zone for a number of reasons. Firstly, Safari Balls do not have a good catch rate compared to Ultra Balls or Great Balls.

There’s also no option to weaken Pokémon to make them easier to catch, as battles are not allowed inside the Zone. Add to that, these unique Pokémon are extremely prone to flee, which makes searching for them tedious for the second time around.

While there’s no foolproof way of 100% catching Dratini, a mixture of baiting it and distracting it will help. Feeding it some food prevents it from fleeing, while throwing rocks makes it easier to catch because they’re angry and agitated.

You should be able to catch Dratini eventually after some luck and patience.

Training Dratini

Dratini is one of few the Dragon-type Pokémon you can catch in the wild.

Train your Dratini to Level 30 and it will evolve into Dragonair. Dragonair has more Dragon-type moves than Dratini, such as Dragon Rage.

When Dragonair reaches Level 55, it will evolve into its final form, Dragonite, which is one of the strongest Pokémon in-game. Dragonite’s move set is also impressive, as it’s capable of learning Outrage and Hyper Beam at Level 61 and 75, respectively.

While catching Dratini might be tiresome at the beginning, it will definitely pay off in the long run as Dragon-type Pokémon are one of the most powerful Pokémon in-game. One of the Elite Four, Lance, even specializes in them and he proves to be a challenge to beat.

Train your Dratini and see how far it will take you!