GTA San Andreas Secret Areas & Unlocks

San Andreas hides most of its best rewards behind locked regions, side jobs and collectibles. Only Los Santos and the countryside around it are open at the start; the jetpack, the Hydra, the Hunter and the Rhino all wait for the right mission, the right school or the full 100%. Here is what is locked, where the secret places are, and what every collectible and side job gives CJ for good.

What Is Locked at the Start

At the start, CJ can only roam Los Santos and Red County. Cross into a closed region early and you collect four wanted stars on the spot. San Fierro, Flint County and Whetstone open after the mission The Green Sabre; Tierra Robada, Bone County and Las Venturas open after Yay Ka-Boom-Boom.

Two places stay hostile for the whole game. Area 69 in Bone County and the naval base at Easter Basin in San Fierro hand out five stars to anyone who wanders in, and that is exactly where the best military hardware is parked.

Area 69, the Jetpack and the Military Hardware

Area 69 sits south of Verdant Meadows, guarded by surface-to-air missile sites. You first get inside during the mission Black Project, to steal the jetpack. Once the jetpack missions are behind you, a jetpack respawns for good at Verdant Meadows, which is the easiest way to fly around the state without a runway.

The Hydra, the jump jet, unlocks after Vertical Bird. From then on you can find one on the aircraft carrier at Easter Basin, in the Verdant Meadows hangar furthest from the tower, and two inside Area 69. The Rhino tank waits in the Area 69 hangars too, behind those five stars.

The Hunter attack helicopter is the reward for gold in every Pilot School test. It then appears on the Easter Basin helipad and at Verdant Meadows, where it shares a spawn point with the Leviathan: arrive from the west to make sure the Hunter is the one waiting for you.

Secret Places Worth Finding

Madd Dogg's mansion in Mulholland is the most lavish place in the game. You first visit it in Madd Dogg's Rhymes, and it becomes one of CJ's safehouses after A Home in the Hills, with a gym, a basketball court, an indoor pool, a recording studio and a Sparrow helicopter on the helipad.

Big Smoke's Crack Palace in East Los Santos is entered during End of the Line, the final mission. The story destroys it, but the building stays open and intact afterwards, so you can walk back through the last level of the game whenever you like.

Inside the Sherman Dam in Bone County, the lift towers on top of the dam lead down to the generator hall, where a pair of night vision goggles is waiting. And for one mission, Saint Mark's Bistro, CJ even flies to Liberty City, the setting of GTA III, to visit Marco's Bistro in Portland for Salvatore Leone.

Once CJ earns his pilot's licence in Learning to Fly, parachutes appear at fixed high points: the Los Santos Tower, the slope of Mount Chiliad, the Big Pointy Building in San Fierro, the west tower of the Garver Bridge, the Tierra Robada tower of the Gant Bridge, the Arco del Oeste, the tower near the Big Ear, and the roof of the Emerald Isle in Las Venturas.

Collectibles and What They Unlock

Each of the four collectible hunts pays $100 per item and leaves something permanent behind. The 50 Oysters, hidden underwater across the state, pay $100,000 at the end, max out CJ's lung capacity and make every girlfriend accept him whatever his looks.

The 50 Horseshoes in Las Venturas pay $100,000 and push CJ's luck to the maximum, which, despite the name, does nothing for your luck at the casino tables. They also leave an MP5, an M4, a combat shotgun and satchel charges outside the Four Dragons Casino. The 50 Snapshots in San Fierro pay $100,000 too and leave a shotgun, a Micro SMG, a sniper rifle and grenades at the Doherty garage.

The 100 Tags in Los Santos are the Grove Street hunt: spray over every rival tag and Molotovs, a Tec-9, a sawn-off shotgun and an AK-47 appear in the kitchen of the Johnson house, while the Grove Street members you recruit carry better guns.

Side Jobs That Make CJ Stronger

The vehicle side missions are where CJ gets tougher. Twelve levels of Vigilante in a police vehicle raise his maximum armour by half; twelve levels of Paramedic max out his health; twelve levels of Firefighter make him immune to fire. Fifty Taxi fares give every taxi nitrous and the ability to jump.

Others pay in money or in businesses. Ten levels of Pimping in a Broadway mean the women pay CJ from then on. Both levels of the Freight train challenge, five stations each, pay $50,000 once all three regions are open. Finishing the Courier runs, by BMX for Roboi's Food Mart in Los Santos, by Freeway for the Hippy Shopper in San Fierro and by Faggio for the Burger Shot in Las Venturas, turns each shop into an asset paying up to $2,000; the Valet job at the Vank Hoff Hotel in San Fierro, open after 555 We Tip, does the same for the hotel.

The Four Schools

Each school hands out a better vehicle for bronze, silver and gold. The Driving School in Doherty gives a Super GT, a Bullet, then a Hotknife with a GOLD plate. The Pilot School at Verdant Meadows, the only one the story requires, gives a Rustler, a Stuntplane and finally the Hunter, and it is what lets CJ take planes from the airports.

The Boat School at Bayside Marina in Tierra Robada gives a Marquis, a Squalo and a Jetmax. The Bike School in Blackfield, Las Venturas, gives a Freeway, an FCR-900 and an NRG-500; it opens after Deconstruction, but you can only do it without wanted stars once Las Venturas is open.

What 100% Gives You

Reaching 100% pays $1,000,000 and gives CJ infinite ammunition, although he still has to reload. A Hydra appears on the roof of Sweet's house and a Rhino under the Ganton bridge at the end of Grove Street, both on your doorstep, and CJ's own vehicles become twice as tough.

Every Unlock at a Glance