Revision 4

Port Gellhorn

Port Gellhorn is a coastal city on the west side of Leonida, located in Kelly County. Rockstar's official description calls it "Leonida's forgotten coast" and paints a picture of economic collapse: "Cheap motels, shut-down attractions, and empty strip malls won't bring the tourists back, but there's a new economy in this once-popular vacation spot. It's fueled by malt liquor, painkillers, and truck stop energy drinks. Jump on a dirt bike and hold onto your wallet."

Port Gellhorn is one of six confirmed major regions in Grand Theft Auto VI, alongside Vice City, the Leonida Keys, Grassrivers, Ambrosia, and Mount Kalaga. It sits in the northwest corner of the state, connected to Vice City in the east by Interstate 404. The area is a significant early-story location for both protagonists.

Setting and Atmosphere

Port Gellhorn was once a popular vacation destination. That time has passed. Rockstar's language is blunt about what replaced it: malt liquor, painkillers, and energy drinks. The area is full of rundown motels with peeling paint, empty parking lots, shuttered roadside attractions, and strip malls where half the storefronts are boarded up. The seaport area includes docks, warehouses, and cargo infrastructure, suggesting some industrial activity remains.

The contrast with Vice City's neon-lit nightlife and luxury developments is deliberate. Where Vice City represents Leonida's wealth and glamour, Port Gellhorn represents the other side: the parts of Florida where the tourism economy dried up and nothing replaced it except cheap drugs and pawn shops. Rockstar's promotional materials lean into this with postcard-style video content that reframes the decay as dark comedy.

Key Locations

Starlet Motel

The Starlet Motel is a run-down motel complex that appears in both trailers. In Trailer 1, Jason and Lucia are shown together in a motel room interior. In Trailer 2, Jason is seen fighting a man in the Starlet Motel parking lot, and the location appears again in official Rockstar screenshots. The motel appears to function as an early safehouse or meeting point before the protagonists move on to bigger things.

Uncle Jack's Liquor

Uncle Jack's Liquor is a liquor store located within the Crossroad Park Minimall along Interstate 404. It appears in two separate scenes in Trailer 1: one showing Jason and Lucia walking through the aisles, and another showing them bursting out through the front doors armed with pistols. The store is also visible in Trailer 2. It is a robbable location and is one of the most prominently featured retail locations in Port Gellhorn.

Port Gellhorn Pawn & Gun

Port Gellhorn Pawn & Gun is a combined pawnshop and firearms dealer visible at approximately 1:10 in Trailer 1. Jason and Lucia are seen driving away from the establishment in a red Declasse Tulip immediately after robbing it. The business represents the type of dual-purpose shops common in economically depressed parts of Florida, where pawnshops and gun stores share the same storefront.

Bocamar Bridge

The Bocamar Bridge is a large suspension bridge visible in Trailer 2, seen in the background as Lucia drives a convertible. Community analysis identifies it as a rendition of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge that spans Lower Tampa Bay in real-life Florida. The name "Bocamar" combines the Spanish words for "mouth" (boca) and "sea" (mar). The bridge connects Port Gellhorn to other parts of Leonida across the bay.

Gellhorn International Raceway

Gellhorn International Raceway is a motorsport facility that includes a road course and a drag strip with grandstands. In Trailer 2, Lucia wears a navy blue shirt featuring artwork of a yellow Dominator ASP and the words "Gellhorn International," providing a partial confirmation of the venue's name. The road course layout resembles Sebring International Raceway, and the drag strip mirrors Gainesville Raceway, according to community analysis of the 2022 development footage and Trailer 2.

Delights Cabaret

Delights Cabaret is a strip club visible in Rockstar's official Port Gellhorn promotional materials. No additional details about the venue have been confirmed, but its presence fits with Rockstar's description of Port Gellhorn's economy and the types of businesses that survive in areas where tourism has collapsed.

Crossroad Park Minimall

The Crossroad Park Minimall is a small strip mall complex along Interstate 404. It houses Uncle Jack's Liquor and other businesses. The minimall is visible in Trailer 2 and represents the "empty strip malls" referenced in Rockstar's official location description.

Abandoned Motel

An unnamed derelict motel appears in Rockstar's promotional postcard video for Port Gellhorn. The building is shown from a distance along the bay, with windows visible through to the other side, indicating total structural collapse. Community researchers identify it as modeled after the El Governor hotel at 1701 US-98 in Mexico Beach, Florida, as it appeared after Hurricane Michael in 2018. The inclusion of a hurricane-damaged building suggests Leonida's coast has experienced similar devastating storms.

Confirmed Locations

Criminal Activity

Port Gellhorn's economy runs on substances. Rockstar's official description names malt liquor, painkillers, and truck stop energy drinks as the fuels of the local economy. Trailer footage shows what appears to be an indoor marijuana growing operation and a drug deal conducted from the rear seat of a vehicle, both attributed to the Port Gellhorn area by community analysis of the trailer settings.

Jason and Lucia commit multiple robberies in Port Gellhorn across the trailers. They rob Uncle Jack's Liquor together (the closing scene of Trailer 1), flee from Port Gellhorn Pawn & Gun in a red Declasse Tulip, and are shown in various states of criminal activity around the Starlet Motel. The area appears to be where their criminal partnership takes shape before escalating to bigger operations in Vice City.

Story Significance

Port Gellhorn appears to function as an early-game hub. The concentration of Jason and Lucia scenes set there across both trailers suggests the story begins in or around this area before expanding to Vice City and the broader state. Their small-time crimes (liquor store and pawn shop robberies, motel stays, parking lot fights) represent the starting point of their criminal escalation.

Rockstar's narrative structure in previous GTA games often starts protagonists in a lower-status area before they work their way up. Rockstar has historically opened protagonists in lower-status areas before they advance to wealthier districts. Port Gellhorn fills a similar role: it establishes the economic desperation that drives Jason and Lucia toward increasingly dangerous scores.

Real-World Inspiration

Community mapping research identifies Panama City, Florida and its neighboring Bay County municipalities (Parker, Callaway, Springfield) as the primary real-world inspiration for Port Gellhorn. The area's rundown tourism infrastructure, coastal geography, and economic decline closely mirror these communities.

The name "Gellhorn" itself may be a reference to Martha Gellhorn, an American war correspondent and novelist who met Ernest Hemingway in Key West, Florida. This connection has been noted by community researchers but is not confirmed by Rockstar.

Environment

Port Gellhorn sits on the Gulf coast side of western Leonida. The environment includes coastal bayfront areas, industrial port infrastructure, dense forests, open grassy fields, and rolling hills surrounding the urban and suburban core. Interstate 404 runs through the area, connecting it to Vice City in the east. Mount Kalaga lies to the north and Lake Leonida sits to the northeast.

The area is distinct from the Grassrivers region, which contains Leonida's swampland and Everglades-equivalent terrain. Port Gellhorn is primarily a coastal and suburban environment with decaying commercial infrastructure, not a wilderness area.