Road to Vostok Shelters Guide — All Locations and How to Unlock Them

Shelters in Road to Vostok are one of the core survival mechanics. They are safe spots where you can save your progress, sleep, wait out some time, and store extra loot. The further you move from the starting area, the more important your network of bases becomes. Without it, you will have to carry everything yourself, backtrack through dangerous locations, and constantly risk your gear. In this guide, we will show you where to find all shelters, which ones are available from the start, where to look for keys, and how to manage supplies between your bases.

In the current version of Road to Vostok, there are six shelters:

In short, the Cabin is your main base at the beginning of the game, the Attic and Classroom help you offload loot from the starting area, the Tent and Bunker are for safer runs into the Border Zone, and the Apartment Room serves as a late-game shelter for raids into Vostok.

They are scattered across three main zones: Area 05, Border Zone, and Vostok. Early shelters help you settle in and organize storage, while the later ones are essential for serious runs into the most dangerous areas.

Shelters serve several important purposes. First, they are your save points and safe zones to return to after a raid. Second, they are your storage: here you should keep ammo, medical supplies, food, water, spare armor, and any weapons you are not currently using. Third, shelters help you plan your route through the map. The further you go, the more dangerous the locations become, so having a backup base closer to new zones is extremely useful.

The Cabin is your starting shelter in the Village area. This is where you bring your first loot, stash extra gear, and prepare for trips to neighboring regions. Early on, the Cabin should be your main storage and planning hub.

Do not try to carry all your weapons, armor, and ammo at once. It is better to keep a supply of food, water, medical items, and ammunition in the Cabin, and only take what you really need on each raid. An overloaded inventory slows you down and increases the risk of dying just because you could not react to an enemy in time.

The Cabin is best used as your main storage in the early game. Keep spare magazines, popular ammo types, medkits, bandages, food, and armor here. If you find a good weapon but cannot maintain or supply it yet, leave it in the Cabin until you are ready to use it.

The Attic is located in the same starting area—the Village—making it one of the most useful early shelters. You will find it right above the Generalist Trader’s shop. His store is in the red building east of your first Cabin.

There are two ways to get the Attic key.

The first way is to complete the questline for the Generalist Trader. Keep in mind that sometimes there is a bug when delivering items. If the trader refuses to accept your loot, click Start Delivery, select the required items, and then click Complete.

The second way is to find the Attic key in the School gym. It can be found on the ground as random loot. So before you start working on the trader’s quests, it is worth checking the gym.

The Attic is especially useful for players who like to thoroughly clear and search every building. Early on, you can use it to store secondary items: extra clothes, spare parts, food, water, and things you might need later. Still, it is best to keep your main ammo and best medical supplies in the Cabin to avoid confusion.

The Classroom is in the School area. It is a more advanced shelter compared to the starting points in the Village. You should unlock it once you start making regular trips to the School and neighboring areas for more valuable loot.

You can get the Classroom key in two ways. The easy way is to find it in the School gym—just like with the Attic key, it can be found as random loot.

The quest for the Classroom key, however, is extremely hardcore, especially early in the game. The Generalist Trader gives you the task. You will need to bring back three oil samples from a very dangerous zone with permanent death, and you will have to cross minefields several times along the way.

The main advantage of the Classroom is route optimization. If you often return to the School, having a shelter right in the area saves you time and resources. In Road to Vostok, moving between maps uses up in-game time, energy, and hydration, so long routes without intermediate bases quickly become a problem.

In the Classroom, you should keep supplies for mid-length raids: medkits, bandages, water, food, extra ammo, and, if possible, armor. This shelter is a great staging point before more dangerous trips.

You do not need a key to unlock the Tent. To find this shelter, go through the School map and head to the Outpost in the Border Zone—the Tent will be almost immediately to your left after you enter.

The main advantage of the Tent is that you can use it right away, for free, and without any extra requirements. The downside is that storage space inside is very limited. If you plan to use the Tent as your main base, it is a good idea to buy storage shelves from the Doctor ahead of time so you can organize your gear, supplies, and extra loot.

The Tent is best used as a temporary base for runs into the Border Zone. Do not turn it into your main stash with all your best gear. Instead, keep only the essentials there: medical supplies, water, food, ammo for your primary weapon, and a spare set of armor.

To get the Bunker key, you need to complete a quest for the Gun Trader. He will ask you to find and eliminate an enemy called the Punisher, then bring back his signature hat as proof. After that, the Gun Trader will give you the shelter key.

The main advantage of the Bunker is its strategic location. The Outpost map connects the early zones with more dangerous parts of the map, so having a reliable shelter in the Border Zone makes progression much easier.

In the Bunker, you should keep a more serious set of supplies: ammo for your main weapon, spare magazines, medical items, repair kits, armor, and food. Basically, it is a great place for a combat stash, letting you head into riskier areas without having to haul everything from your starting Cabin every time.

The Apartment Room is located in the Vostok area. This is a late-game shelter, and you should not try to reach it unprepared. Vostok is the most dangerous part of the route, and mistakes here are much more costly than in Area 05 or the Border Zone.

You can find the Apartment Room key as random loot in high-security zones, but you need to be extremely careful while searching for it: Vostok is a region with permanent death, so one serious mistake can cost you your entire save and everything in your stash.

Searching building by building in this area is almost guaranteed to get you killed. That is why experienced players usually do not rush to find the Apartment Room and instead use a safer strategy of gradual runs.

Do not take unnecessary risks. First, set up your Tent or Bunker at the Outpost and use them as your main staging point before raids into Vostok.

Never enter Vostok without full armor, a helmet, and a good supply of medical items. At the same time, do not overload your backpack: about five bandages, a bit of food, and just the essentials are enough, so you have room for valuable loot.

The Tent or Bunker at the Outpost is the best starting point for these runs. Leave the safe zone around 4:30 am so you can reach the apartments by sunrise and make the most of daylight.

When crossing the border, lower your weapon to move faster. Stick to the center of the path, watch your step, and do not try to take shortcuts.

The main goal of the raid is the courtyards of the apartment buildings, where you can find special military containers. These can hold late-game gear, including CAR-21 rifles and repair kits.

As soon as you find valuable loot or notice your armor is getting damaged, leave immediately. In Vostok, one extra building can cost you your entire save, so it is better to come back with less than lose everything.

The Apartment Room is meant for your final and riskiest runs. If you have made it this far, you should already have a solid supply network: the Cabin and Attic for early storage, Classroom for mid-game raids, Tent or Bunker for the Border Zone, and only then move into Vostok.

The main mistake beginners make is storing everything in one place. At first, it seems convenient: all your gear is in the Cabin, nothing gets lost, and you do not have to remember where things are. But the further you go, the worse this system works. Going back to the start just for ammo or a medkit wastes time, energy, and puts you at risk. It is much better to give each shelter a specific role.

To set up a shelter, go inside any unlocked base and switch to decoration mode. Here, you can place furniture and items you have bought from traders, and rotate them to organize your space more efficiently.

Early on, this might seem like a minor feature, but it becomes genuinely useful later. This is especially true once you unlock the Bunker, which offers plenty of storage space. There, you can set up shelves, sort your gear by category, and turn your shelter into a full-fledged forward base.