The Bardic Unicorn
Gaming tips and inspiration!
Much to the disappointment of many families with a shared Nintendo Switch, all accounts on the Switch share a single island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. While this can be […]
Much to the disappointment of many families with a shared Nintendo Switch, all accounts on the Switch share a single island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. While this can be a huge drawback for multi-user Switches and can lead to some strained relationships, it can be super useful for a single user!
After playing for a couple of months, I was seriously running out of space on my island. I had so many ideas about spaces I wanted to stage, but couldn’t find the room to do it. I wanted a cafe, playground, fitness center, tiki bar/surf shop, and a Renaissance Festival complete with castle. And much, much more.
I had already created a second account to get more storage space for my hoard of items and clothing and crafting materials. Then I decided that I could use the rooms of his house to set up a nice spa in my zen garden area. Which gave me the idea to add more residents in order to move some of my outdoor areas inside. Not only has this given me more space for gardens and greenery, it also gives me more options for decorating because you can use flooring/wallpapers and hang items on walls.
Starting a new house can be an expensive endeavor. You can drop bells from your main account for paying the loans, but the moving fees have to be paid in miles by each account. The guide below will help you quickly accrue the 5,000 miles you need to to pay off your moving fees.
Make your new resident’s life easier.
Before you log out of your main account and start the new one, do yourself a favor and drop some supplies, especially tools–possibly some items to sell as well if you’ve already gathered everything in your daily rounds on your main account.
They’ll earn miles for trashing tools, so you may want to just leave them some flimsy tools. They’ll learn how to make the flimsy fishing rod pretty early, but they won’t learn all the tools up front.
Additionally, you may want to start up the new account before doing your daily tasks so that it leaves more for them to do. Such as shaking items from trees (Shady Shakedown) and digging up fossils.
If you’re setting up a new resident for your own use, rather than a character name, name them based on what their house will be used for. For example, the first new residents I added for this purpose were “University” and “Library.” Flurpy decided to turn her extra residents into a shopping center and in the video referenced later, set up a character named “Food Court.”
Set the resident’s birthday to the day AFTER you’re setting them up. Birthday celebrations only happen after you have a house AND you’ve spoken to at least one animal resident on the island. The birthday celebration gets you 2,000 miles. It won’t help you with paying your moving fees, but it will help you upgrade the resident’s pocket space, tool ring, etc. And trust me, it’s really annoying to go back to no tool ring and only 20 pocket spaces once you’re used to the max. I can’t tell you how many times I hit the up arrow on the d-pad trying to use the tool ring just out of sheer habit.
If you’re a brand new user starting your own island, we’re working on a separate guide and will update this with a link once it’s done. Some of this might be helpful, but some of this won’t be available on a brand new island.
At the end of this post, you’ll find a table with all of the achievements for Nook Miles that are easy to rack up for a new resident. But first, here’s an outline of our speedruns and the order we did things in to do this as quickly as possible. We completed these in 30 minutes or less.
My tactic for big miles early on was planting fruit trees. I started this resident on a day I had fruit but hadn’t yet harvested. Alternatively, make sure to just drop one of each fruit for your new resident to plant. If you don’t have space to really plant more trees, just dig them up and sell them immediately, which will also trigger the Seller of Unwanted Stuff achievement. Planting one of each fruit tree gets you a total of 2,800 miles!
| Miles Gained | Achievement | Description | Total Miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| +500 | Kandiland Miles! | Automatically unlocked by moving to your island. | 500 |
| +300 | Bulletin Board Benefit | Write your first post on the Bulletin Board. | 500 |
| +300 | Island Shutterbug | Open the Camera app on your NookPhone and take a picture. | 1100 |
| +300 | Edit Credit | Open the Passport app on your NookPhone and edit any part of your passport. | 1400 |
| +100 | Fruit Roots 1 | Planted a Coconut (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 1500 |
| +200 | Fruit Roots 2 | Planted a Peach (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 1700 |
| +300 | Fruit Roots 3 | Planted an Orange (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 2000 |
| +500 | Fruit Roots 4 | Planted a Cherry (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 2500 |
| +700 | Fruit Roots 5 | Planted a Pear (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 3200 |
| +300 | NookPhone Life | Open your NookPhone for the 10th time. | 3500 |
| +1000 | Fruit Roots 6 | Planted an Apple (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 4500 |
| +300 | Go Ahead. Be Shellfish! | Sell 10 seashells (any kind). | 4800 |
| +300 | Seller of Unwanted Stuff | Sell anything for the first time (triggered along with Go Ahead. Be Shellfish! achievement). | 5100 |
Flurpy forgot to drop tools and was distracted by chat and STILL paid her moving fees in under 30 minutes! She took advantage of the “Your Island Name” Icons achievement by changing her island tune and flag for a quick 1,000 miles! She also took advantage of the Fruit Roots miles, but instead of looking for actual free space on her island, she dug each tree up immediately and used the same hole for the next fruit tree for added efficiency! Here’s the order she earned miles, but you can also just watch this sweet video.
| Miles Gained | Achievement | description | total miles |
|---|---|---|---|
| +500 | Toebean Miles! | Automatically unlocked by moving to your island. | 500 |
| +300 | Island Shutterbug | Open the Camera app on your NookPhone and take a picture. | 800 |
| +300 | Edit Credit | Open the Passport app on your NookPhone and edit any part of your passport. | 1100 |
| +300 | Bulletin Board Benefit | Write your first post on the Bulletin Board. | 1400 |
| +500 | Toebean Icons 1 | Change your island tune! You have to change at least one note, but then you can just change it back if you like your current tune! | 1900 |
| +500 | Toebean Icons 2 | Change your island flag! You can even choose the same design you’re already using! | 2400 |
| +300 | Go Ahead. Be Shellfish! | Sell 10 seashells. | 2700 |
| +300 | Seller of Unwanted Stuff | Sell anything for the first time (triggered along with Go Ahead. Be Shellfish! achievement). | 3000 |
| +100 | Fruit Roots 1 | Planted a Pear (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 3100 |
| +200 | Fruit Roots 2 | Planted a Peach (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 3300 |
| +300 | Fruit Roots 3 | Planted an Orange (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 3600 |
| +500 | Fruit Roots 4 | Planted a Cherry (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 4100 |
| +700 | Fruit Roots 5 | Planted an Apple (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 4800 |
| +1000 | Fruit Roots 6 | Planted a Coconut (order of fruit doesn’t matter). | 5800 |
The table below includes the Nook Miles achievements we used as well as others that can be quickly and easily earned. These are pulled directly from the official ACNH Guide. The list below is sorted from tasks worth the most miles to those worth the least to help you prioritize tasks.
You’ll automatically get 500 miles just for moving to the island thanks to the “Your Island Name” Miles! achievement. Since this happens automatically, we didn’t include it in the list below.
| # of Miles | Achievement | description |
|---|---|---|
| 11,800* | Golden Milestone | *11,800 miles total (300, 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 5000) Acquire your first Golden tools of each type (Net, Fishing Rod, Watering Can, Axe, Shovel, Slingshot); miles increase for each tool, but the order doesn’t matter. If you have access to all the golden tools, this is a great way to rack up miles quickly. The resident doesn’t need to keep–or even use–the tools, they just need to pick them up and drop them! |
| 2,800* | Fruit Roots | *2,800 miles total (100, 200, 300, 500, 700, 1000) Plant one of each type of fruit tree. The number of miles increases exponentially for each different fruit tree. You get the miles as soon as the trees are planted so you don’t have to keep them if you’re short on space! |
| 2,000* | Happy Birthday! | *Can only be earned after you have a house so it won’t help with your moving fees. Play on your birthday! Set the new character’s birthday to the day after you start playing them to quickly earn miles for pocket and tool ring upgrades! |
| 1,000* | “Your Island Name” Icons | *500 miles each Change your island flag and/or tune! You must change at least one note of the tune, but can immediately change it back. When changing the flag, you can choose the same design you’re already using. |
| 500 | Making a Change | Use a wardrobe to change clothes. |
| 500 | Rock-splitting champ | Hit a single rock 8 times in a row. Every resident gets a money rock, so even if you’ve already hit your rocks for the day, the new resident should have at least one they can hit! |
| 300 | Angling for Perfection | Catch 10 of any fish. |
| 300 | Bona Fide Bone Finder | Dig up 1 fossil (as long as you haven’t dug up and identified your fossils for the day already). |
| 300 | Bulleting Board Benefit | Write your first post on the bulletin board. |
| 300 | Cast Master | Catch 10 fish in a row. If you don’t lose any fish, you’ll get this at the same time as Angling for Perfection! |
| 300 | Edit Credit | Open the NookPhone app and edit your passport for the first time. |
| 300 | Flower Power | Plant 10 flowers. If you have the seeds and the space, this is quick and easy. |
| 300 | Flower Tender | Water 10 flowers. If it’s raining or if other residents have already watered the flowers, this may not work. |
| 300 | Go Ahead. Be Shellfish! | Sell 10 seashells of any kind. Bonus: this will also trigger the Seller of Unwanted Stuff achievement! |
| 300 | Island Togetherness | Talk to all of your residents. If you have a full 10 residents, it can potentially be time consuming to track them all down. |
| 300 | Island Shutterbug | Open the Camera app on your NookPhone and take a picture for the first time. |
| 300 | NookPhone Life | Open your NookPhone for the 10th time. If you open your phone each time you get the alert that you’ve earned miles, you’ll passively get to this in no time. |
| 300 | Overcoming Pitfalls | Fall into a pit trap. If you have the Pitfall seed DIY, bury one before you log out of your main account. |
| 300 | Seller of Unwanted Stuff | Sell anything for the first time. |
| 300 | Shady Shakedown | Shake furniture from a tree (as long as you haven’t already done so with your main account already). |
| 300 | Shop to It | Order something from the Nook Shopping app in the ABD inside Resident Services. |
| 300 | Taking the Sting Out | Get stung twice by wasps and faint. |
| 300 | Trashed Tools | Trash 1 tool (flimsy net and flimsy fishing rod only break after catching 10 fish/bugs so you’ll get this at the same time as Angling for Perfection or You’ve got the Bug if you go use a flimsy tool). |
| 300 | You’ve Got the Bug | Catch any 10 bugs. |
you can gain over 12,000 nook mile by just gaining the 6 golden tools
That’s a great point! We’ll update the post accordingly!