How to leave Los Santos and fully explore the map in GTA San Andreas
How to fully explore the map - officially and unofficially.
Leaving Los Santos is probably one of your first major goals - allowing you to see more of what GTA San Andreas has to offer.
Unlike previous GTA games, there are three cities and vast amounts of countryside to explore - but initially, you can only see Los Santos until a certain point.
By completing certain story missions, more will become available to you, including the region of Las Venturas in time. However, if you know the right workarounds, you can escape the opening city sooner than expected.
This page explains how to leave Los Santos and reach Las Venturas to help you fully open up GTA San Andreas's map.
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If you're looking for more explainers, we have pages on San Andreas gyms and fitness, girlfriends and GTA San Andreas cheats.
How to leave Los Santos in GTA San Andreas
As the game begins, there's a restriction on transport due to the destruction caused by an earthquake, with many roads about to be repaired.
At the same time, you are warned to not leave Los Santos by the officers Tenpenny and Hernandez, and violating any restriction will automatically add Wanted stars, drawing the ire of the police forces whenever you go until they catch or kill you.
Both of those restrictions are lifted after the story quest 'The Green Sabre', one of the major quests in the storyline of GTA San Andreas.
This will require you to play at least a dozen quests first - but once you have completed them you will gain access to Flint County, Whetstone, and San Fierro.
How to reach Las Venturas and fully explore the map in GTA San Andreas
After getting access to San Fierro, Flint County, and Whetstone, you must keep playing the story quests until you reach a point where you will get a quest from Wu Zi Mu, a gang leader from the garage at Doherty, San Fierro.
Once you complete that story quest, named "Yay Ka-Boom-Boom", the restrictions on accessing Tierra Robada, Bone County, and Las Venturas will be lifted, finally enabling you to explore the full map of GTA San Andreas without any danger of automatically attracting the police forces.
How to open up the map in GTA San Andreas early
While there isn't a glitch that allows you to explore the full map, you can overcome the automatic Wanted Level and then explore at your own pace by following some steps at a certain point in the game:
- Have the ninth story quest "Drive-By" active, but don't get into the car with the gang. Keep in mind that you won't be able to repeat this quest unless you start a new game, which makes this process very specific.
- Drive away in another vehicle and head to the Airport in the south part of Los Santos, where a dodo airplane will be sitting ready to be snatched.
- Steal the vehicle and fly away from there, into the other regions.
- That's it! You won't draw the attention of the police and you'll be able to explore as much as you want.
Whether as part of the story or otherwise, we hope you enjoy exploring all of what San Andreas has to offer!