How to Find Abandoned Camps in Minecraft 26.3
Abandoned Camps are one of the best new features in Minecraft 26.3 "Wilderness Bound." They're small overworld structures that generate across 18 biomes, each with a tent, a campfire, and loot containers. Some even hide buried copper chests with diamonds and explorer maps to major structures. Here's everything you need to know to find them and loot them efficiently.
1. What Is an Abandoned Camp?
Every abandoned camp shares a few core elements: a tent made of wool stairs, a campfire, and at least one barrel or chest with loot. Many also include cushions, straw beds, and lanterns, though those aren't guaranteed. The camps come in hundreds of visual variants depending on the biome they spawn in. Some are overgrown with local plants, others have ponds, farms, or cobweb-filled crevices.
What makes them special is the three-tier loot system. Regular barrels and chests are visible on the surface, but a third type, the secret copper chest, can be completely buried underground and is easy to miss if you're not digging around the camp perimeter.
2. Which Biomes Do They Spawn In?
Abandoned camps can appear in 18 overworld biomes, which makes them one of the most widely generated structures in the game:
- Bamboo Jungles
- Birch Forests
- Cherry Groves
- Dappled Forests (new in 26.3)
- Flower Forests
- Forests
- Meadows
- Old Growth Birch Forests
- Old Growth Pine Taigas
- Old Growth Spruce Taigas
- Pale Gardens
- Savannas
- Snowy Taigas
- Sparse Jungles
- Swamps
- Taigas
- Windswept Forests
- Wooded Badlands
That said, a biome being on the list doesn't guarantee a camp will spawn there. They're common but not certain, so keep exploring.
3. How to Find Them Fast
The most reliable survival method is Elytra flight. From the air, the campfire smoke and wool tent structures stand out against the terrain, especially in dense forests where they're hard to spot from the ground. Fly at 40 to 80 blocks up and scan the tree canopy.
If you have cheats enabled or are in creative mode, use:
/locate structure minecraft:abandoned_camp
For a specific biome variant, add the biome name:
/locate structure minecraft:abandoned_camp_cherry_grove
The smartest approach is to find one camp, loot its chest, and check for an abandoned camp explorer map. These maps point to camps in eight different biomes, letting you chain from one camp to the next without blind searching.
4. Loot Tables: Barrels, Chests, and Secret Copper Chests
Each camp has three separate loot tables that are consistent across all biomes. Here's what you can expect:
Barrels (surface, always visible)
Basic survival supplies. You'll find arrows, bones, bread, wheat, coal, string, fishing rods, leather, rabbit hide, glass bottles, white candles, a wooden axe, and occasionally a bundle. Nothing rare, but useful for early-game sustain.
Wooden Chests (surface, always present)
The main loot pool. This is where the good stuff lives: copper gear (axe, boots, chestplate, leggings, spear, sword), bows, buckets, compasses, spyglasses, saddles, shears, flint and steel, leads, fireworks, and abandoned camp explorer maps for eight biomes. You can also find empty maps and bundles here.
Secret Copper Chests (hidden, sometimes buried)
The jackpot. Not every camp has one, and when it does exist it can be fully underground. Dig around the camp in a 5-block radius to find it. The loot is significantly better:
| Item | Quantity |
|---|---|
| Diamonds | 1 |
| Gold ingots | 1 to 2 |
| Iron ingots / axe / boots / leggings / spear | 1 each |
| Copper ingots | 1 to 2 |
| Potions (Healing, Leaping, Night Vision, Swiftness) | 1 each |
| Explorer Maps (Ancient City, Desert Pyramid, Jungle Pyramid, Mineshaft, Trial Chamber, Warm Ocean Ruins, Woodland Mansion) | 1 each |
The explorer maps to Ancient Cities and Trial Chambers are the real prize. These structures are hard to locate normally, and a single buried copper chest can hand you the map for free.
⛏ Mine faster while you loot: Vein Miner datapack — sneak-mine an ore and the whole vein drops in one break. Vanilla 1.21+, works on servers and Realms.
5. Tips for Maximum Loot
- Always dig around the camp. The secret copper chest is the most valuable container and it's often buried just below the surface.
- Follow the explorer map chain. One camp's chest can point you to another camp, which points to another. You can loot 5 or more in a single session this way.
- Prioritize rare biomes. A camp in a cherry grove or dappled forest is harder to find naturally, so grab its map when you see one.
- Check for cobwebs. Camps with spider web-filled crevices often hide extra loot behind the webs.
- Break the campfire. It drops a campfire item you can reuse, and clearing it makes the tent interior easier to search.
- Bring a shovel. The buried copper chest is usually in dirt or grass, not stone, so a shovel clears it in seconds.
Abandoned Camps are a quietly excellent addition to 26.3. They're not flashy like a new boss, but they give you a reason to explore biomes you'd normally skip, and the buried copper chest mechanic adds a treasure-hunt layer that vanilla Minecraft has been missing. Find one, dig around it, and follow the maps.