There’s a lot to consider when choosing a spot to setup your base at in The Forest. Where has the most resources, whilst also providing some sort of natural defenses? Where can you quickly access caves, whilst not having to travel around constantly for supplies?
Well, there is a map available, where you can take a look at the game world. It shows a lot of important information too, such as collectibles, caves, recommended base locations, food & drink items and Cannibals. By filtering the Cannibals, you can see which areas you should avoid (or explore if that’s what you want). We’ve linked to it below.
But for now, we’ll show you some of the best base locations currently available. For more The Forest guides on PC and PS4, make sure to check out our dedicated area here!
South Beach Camp
By far, one of the best base locations for The Forest has to be the South Beach. Firstly, it’s surrounded by cliffs which means there’s no easy way for the Cannibals to get to you. They might spot you sure, but they’re gonna struggle to find a way down.
There is a chance they’ll fall down (and take some damage doing so), or they’ll use the structures that you build which could be staircases. Just make sure to switch off any lights and head indoors if you see the Cannibals at the top of the cliffs, as they’ll often look down when patrolling.

The beauty of this spot is that the only way up or down is a rocky hill, which can’t be traversed normally. It will require a lot of jumping on your part. At the top of the cliffs you have dense trees which you can cut down and roll the trunks down the hill, or even setup a zipline which you can use.
Unfortunately, the food and water supply is rather questionable. You’ll have no fresh water, so you will need to setup multiple rain collectors. Your only access to food will be turtles and seagulls, which are practically infinite which is less problematic. The beach area in general is pretty big, and has space for everything you need.
The plane will crash on different parts of the island on different playthroughs. There is a chance that your crash could happen just a 20 second walk away from this location, which can be great. You can see the location of this beach camp on the map (look for the blue marker, coordinates are -740, 1600).
You are going to have to do a lot of trips up the cliffs to get all the supplies you need, but you’re pretty safe here. But there are in-fact safer locations…
On the Islands
Arguably, the safest locations in The Forest are on islands, which also makes them some of the best base locations. Luckily, there are plenty of islands dotted around the game world, with one even being just a few seconds walk away from the location above.

What makes islands the safest locations? Well, Cannibals will never get to them, or you. Cannibals don’t spawn on islands, nor do they cross the water, so you can survive freely on your island without having to worry about them.
But obviously, there’s the question of resources. You’re not going to have access to most materials (most importantly, wood from trees) or food and water. This means a lot of trips to the mainland whenever you can.
Annoyingly, travelling through water is really slow. If you do decide to setup on an island, make sure to build a raft as soon as you can. That way, you can take daily trips to the mainland to get the materials you need. You won’t have to waste resources here on defenses either which is great, you could survive the entire game here.
There are plenty of island locations to choose from in The Forest. Just take a look at the map, the image above was taken from the small island located in the most South-East corner.