Minecraft Abandoned Camps Guide: All Locations and Loot

Abandoned Camps are one of the best additions to Minecraft in the Wilderness Bound update. These small, worn-down campsites look like something a traveller left behind in a hurry, and they reward exploration with three distinct tiers of loot, crafting recipes you can only learn by breaking the furniture, and a chain of explorer maps that keep pulling you deeper into the wilderness.

What are Abandoned Camps in Minecraft?

Abandoned Camps are surface structures that generate across 18 different Overworld biomes. Each one consists of a white wool tent made from Wool Stairs, a campsite area in front of it, and a combination of barrels, chests, Straw Beds, Cushions, and other utility blocks. The fences supporting the tent use wood native to the biome where the camp spawns, so a camp in a Pale Garden uses Pale Oak Fences, while one in a Bamboo Jungle uses Bamboo Fences.

The structures adapt to their surroundings in other ways too. A camp in a Cherry Grove scatters Pink Petals around the site. A Dappled Forest camp sits among Poplar Logs and Leaf Litter. The game can produce up to 8,820 unique camp configurations across all biomes, so no two camps feel identical.

Related guide

Minecraft Cushions: Crafting Recipe, Colors, and Sitting Guide

Craft all 16 Cushion colors in Minecraft Wilderness Bound, unlock the sitting mechanic, and build better furniture with this quick guide.

Where to find Abandoned Camps in Minecraft?

Abandoned Camps generate across all 18 of the following Overworld biomes:

• Meadow
• Cherry Grove
• Forest
• Birch Forest
• Old Growth Birch Forest
• Flower Forest
• Windswept Forest
• Dappled Forest
• Taiga
• Snowy Taiga
• Old Growth Spruce Taiga
• Old Growth Pine Taiga
• Sparse Jungle
• Bamboo Jungle
• Swamp
• Savanna
• Wooded Badlands
• Pale Garden

Generation follows a 37x37 chunk grid. Each region gets one placement attempt, and camps are spaced a minimum of 8 chunks apart with a maximum gap of 60 chunks. The average distance between two neighbouring camps works out to roughly 34 chunks.

The Dappled Forest is also worth targeting specifically. The red, orange, and yellow Poplar leaves make the white wool tent highly visible from a distance. Dappled Forest camps are harder to find than standard forest camps, but they feel distinctly atmospheric and the loot quality is the same.

The one biome to avoid searching is the Dark Forest. Abandoned Camps do not generate there, and the dense canopy would make spotting one nearly impossible anyway.

Dappled Forest camp visibility

How does the camp map chain work?

This is the mechanic that turns Abandoned Camp hunting into a proper exploration loop. The chest or barrel at most camps contains a Camp Explorer Map pointing to another Abandoned Camp in a different biome. Follow that map, loot the next camp, and you will almost always find another map inside. Testing across multiple worlds has produced chains of six consecutive camps before the trail went cold.

The maps will never point you back to the biome you are currently in, so each map in a chain leads somewhere new. If you are lucky, one of those maps will direct you toward a Dappled Forest camp, which is otherwise one of the harder biomes to stumble across naturally.

For more detail on the explorer maps available in the Wilderness Bound update, check out our Minecraft Abandoned Camps guide covering all locations and loot.

What loot can you find in Abandoned Camps?

Abandoned Camps have three distinct loot containers, and understanding what each one offers will change how you prioritise your search.

Barrel loot

Barrels carry basic survival supplies. Every item has a 35.5% chance of appearing per barrel:

Barrel loot will not transform your run, but Straw Beds and Bundles early on are genuinely useful. For a refresher on why Straw Beds matter for early-game survival, see our guide on how to make a Straw Bed.

Common chest loot

Common chests are the main attraction. They carry better gear and always include a Camp Explorer Map:

The Camp Explorer Map draws from a pool of eight biome-specific variants. You will never receive a map pointing to the same biome the current camp is in.

Secret chest loot

The secret chest is an Oxidized Copper Chest buried one block underground, usually hidden beneath a barrel or under a block that looks slightly out of place compared to its surroundings. Dig around the campsite area rather than just the tent interior.

The secret chest also contains a structure explorer map pointing to one of seven locations: Ancient City, Mineshaft, Trial Chambers, Desert Pyramid, Jungle Pyramid, Warm Ocean Ruins, or Woodland Mansion. That alone makes finding the buried chest worth the effort on any new world.

Hidden copper chest location

What crafting recipes can you learn at Abandoned Camps?

Breaking certain blocks at the camp teaches you recipes you cannot get any other way in Wilderness Bound. On your first visit to a new camp, prioritise breaking these before you leave:

• Straw Beds drop the Straw Bed recipe
• Wool Stairs drop the Wool Stairs recipe
• Cushions drop the Cushion recipe

Cushions are decorative items that come in every wool colour and function as placeable furniture. Wool Stairs are the tent material itself and a genuinely new block type added in the Wilderness Bound update. You only need to break one of each to unlock the recipe, so you do not need to strip the entire camp.

Tips for efficient camp hunting

After running the map chain across several worlds, a few patterns stand out:

• Mount up before you search. Riding a horse through forested biomes dramatically increases how quickly you spot the white wool tent. The tent is large enough to see over most undergrowth, and the distinctive shape is hard to miss once you know what you are looking for.
• Follow the chain, do not wander. The map chain is the most reliable way to find consecutive camps. Random exploration will work, but the maps are faster.
• Check every container. Some camp configurations have barrels inside the tent and a chest outside, or multiple barrels with no obvious chest. The buried Oxidized Copper Chest is separate from all of them.
• Dark Forests are dead ends. Abandoned Camps do not generate in Dark Forests. If you are in one, move on.

For players who are just starting out and want to understand the basics of surviving your first session before hunting camps, our Minecraft first night survival guide covers the essentials.

Abandoned Camps are one of the more rewarding additions to arrive in a Minecraft update in some time. The loot chain gives exploration a clear direction, the buried chests reward thoroughness, and the biome-specific decorations make each camp feel like it belongs to its location. For more guides on what the Wilderness Bound update added to the game, browse the full Minecraft guides collection.