Locations

Most of the markers on Geralt's map hand you loot and nothing else. Two sets do something better: they pay in a currency you cannot buy. One gives you character progression, the other gives it to your horse, and both of them close an achievement once you have cleared the board. That is the useful way to think about the places worth a detour.

Places of Power pay in ability points

These are the tall runestones left standing where the Conjunction of the Spheres tore the worlds together, and touching one for the first time is worth an ability point outright. That is the part that matters over a playthrough: it is free progression scattered across every region, and it does not care what level you are when you collect it.

The second payout is temporary. Each stone is keyed to one of the five signs and hands you a boost to that sign's intensity, and the buffs from separate stones stack, which is why the habit worth building is to look for the nearest stone before a hard fight rather than after it. The climb up Bald Mountain to reach Imlerith passes one for exactly that reason.

They are spread unevenly. White Orchard holds six, which is more than the region's size suggests and is why the Power Overwhelming achievement is easiest to chase there before you leave the prologue behind. Velen also has six, several of them awkward enough to need a swim or a detour around a mountain. Novigrad has only two. Kaer Morhen has a single stone, and you will walk past it during the Wolf School scavenger hunt. Toussaint adds another five with Blood and Wine. Skellige holds the rest and is the worst going of the lot, thanks to islands that are mostly cliff.

Several stones have something guarding them, and the guards are levelled rather than scaled: a wraith in the White Orchard forest, a bear at the abandoned site, a werewolf near the Ancient Oak in Velen, a rock troll and sirens on the trail to Yngvar's Fang. Bring the right oil for whichever of those you are walking into and none of them are a problem.

Horse races pay in tack

Races are filed as secondary quests, and the reason to run them is not the purse. It is that almost every piece of equipment Roach can wear is a race prize. Blinders reduce her fear so she does not throw you mid-fight, saddles raise her stamina so a gallop lasts, and saddlebags raise your own carry weight, which quietly solves the inventory problem that plagues the first twenty hours. Our horse upgrades page sorts those four equipment types by which is worth chasing first.

The board runs across three regions and one expansion. Crow's Perch in Velen is the tutorial set, three short laps against Stuttering Matko, Iron-Arse Hans and Black Bogdan on one circuit, with loose barrels appearing at random for the latter two. Novigrad holds the Vegelbud Memorial Derby, which charges a hundred crowns per entry, runs a different long route each time and ends with Luc Vegelbud in the rain. Win those and Cleaver invites you to the Palio on the Grassy Knoll, the longest track in the game and a single attempt only, so save first.

Skellige is a four-race ladder called The Heroes' Pursuits, running from Fayrlund through Kaer Trolde and Fyresdal to a final against Astrid the Vipress on Hindarsfjall, where the sharp turns near Freya's Garden matter more than your speed does. You can keep re-challenging her until you win. Hearts of Stone adds Swift as the Western Winds at Upper Mill against Dulla kh'Amanni, with a merchant lobbing barrels at you and goats on the bridge, and Broken Flowers offers an entirely optional race against Morvran at the Vegelbud estate that has no bearing on the quest either way.

Two habits win almost all of them. Push the bet slider to its maximum, because you are being paid for a race you were going to win anyway. And stay on the road: leaving the track costs speed, and Roach's stamina is the real limit, so spend the slow moments at corners letting her recover rather than sprinting the straights and dying on the last bend.

Where the rest of the map lives

Two things this bucket deliberately does not cover. Fast travel points are their own system, with a signpost network far larger than the race board, and they are handled on the fast travel page along with sailing between harbours. Vendors are people rather than places, so the master armourer, the trophy buyer, the Runewright and the grandmaster smith are on the NPC locations page and in the NPCs guide rather than here.

If you want the unmarked kind of discovery instead, the secret treasures page collects the chests the map never pins at all, and Lornruk Castle is the best single example of a place the game hides behind a puzzle rather than behind a marker.