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In Minecraft, I have pretty much emptied the places around my home of resources and thus I need to travel a lot to other mines. I would like to know a fast way to do so. I have tried minecarts on rails (take up a lot of iron, and aren't really that fast), boats and more. I guess I should build some sort of construction.

What is the fastest mean of transport you can make in Minecraft (something which is still worth the effort to build, of course)?

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A theoretical, super-dangerous solution using ender-pearls would be to set up basins around nether portals in the nether, and use targeted ender-pearls to teleport between them. Apart from the high risk of missing and teleporting directly into lava, there's the added bonus of being completely awesome. – zzzzBov Mar 6 '12 at 4:05
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Traveling by boat consumes no hunger at all, so it's also a very efficient method. – Anderson Green Feb 14 at 4:18

7 Answers

up vote 34 down vote accepted

Well, the fastest form of transportation is by minecart, and within The Nether you travel at a 8:1 ratio as in the overworld, so my answer would be traveling via minecart in The Nether.

(Even walking in The Nether is faster than any overworld transportation - minecarts top out at 8m/s, and you certainly walk faster than 1m/s.)

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The Nether is actually 8:1. Notch suggested 16:1 at one point, but the actual release had it at 8:1. – SevenSidedDie Apr 28 '11 at 3:11
I was wondering about that - for some reason I thought 8:1 in my head, but then I remembered it was chunk to block and confused myself into thinking it was 16:1. Thanks for the correction. – Kevin Y Apr 28 '11 at 3:29

As Kevin says, use The Nether. The only problem is that it's often dangerous.

As for "the fastest way to travel long distances", the objective answer is: Teleboaters. Minecarts come a distant second. As for construction, tracks cost 1 iron per 2.7 squares of travel, not counting boosters. Teleboats cost 1 log per ~3 squares of travel. But boats are hard to carry and look terrible.

(Fun fact: the truly fastest mode of transport involves a giant stack of simultaneously-triggered TNT.)

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The fastest mode of travel would be respawning I'd think. – Nick T Apr 25 '11 at 14:22
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The nether now works in multiplayer. – Zoredache Oct 3 '11 at 19:42
Also, teleboaters are fragile. I don't mean the wood as much as a boat getting knocked out of place. Last that I played, teleboating from one boat to another would cause one of the boats to move northward. But, I think that this was patched. I haven't played since to test so. Also, +1 to Nick T for the smartaleck answer. – NiteCyper Apr 12 at 18:06

A combination of force-field cart jumping and the nether would do the trick.

  • t = traveling time in seconds
  • d = view distance. What is it? Let's assume it is around 80 blocks so you can easily aim the cart.
  • m = clicks per second. I can do around 7.5
  • n = nether distance factor. It is 8

The distance you can travel equals

t*d*m*n = 80*7.5*8 = 4800t

which means that you can travel 4800 blocks each second.

Update: As noted below in the comment, the force-field jumping bug is fixed for quite some time now. This approach won't work anymore.

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What's "force-field cart jumping"? – SevenSidedDie Dec 31 '12 at 3:33
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force-field jumping was an incredible bug introduced in the recent version to that date. Basically, it used stacked minecarts such that they were in an undefined state. You could right-click and enter them from any distance, as long as you could see them at least. It is already fixed, though. – fjdumont Feb 11 at 15:46

I suggest Sky bridges if you are traveling across continents/water. Single track with torches to keep mobs from spawning.

The answer is nether if you're playing single player. Rails and minecarts if you're resource rich Cobblestone and torches across the sky if your cheap. A little difficult to lay but if you hold the SHIFT key, you cant fall so it makes it easy to lay that way.

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Does your answer imply that the 8:1 ratio between real/nether worlds does not apply in multiplayer? – Drew Noakes Aug 25 '12 at 23:49

My favourite is a sky-bridge, either for walking on or via mine carts. It only needs to be one block wide, and bypasses any obstacles. You just make a branch off when you reach your destination, and a mine cart station if you need to.

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I just read about a great way to go very fast with no risk:

1) Make a line of ice 2x(however long), along the ground.

2) Line cobblestone along the sides like bumpers.

3) Put trapdoors over the ice. (Hint: attach them to the cobblestone.)

4) Put Glass directly two blocks over the ice.

Try it out! Open the first trapdoor, and stand in the track (on the ice). Close the trapdoor, then sprint down the track, jumping even though there is glass over your head. This should make you go twice as fast as a minecart.

Hope this helps!

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You can actually change your game mode to creative by using cheats, get lots and lots and lots of TNT and put it down so that it does not exceed 3 blocks high, and make sure it's not too far away from you. Then detonate the TNT at each of the corners FAST. When you're in multiplayer, you can ask your friends to help. I've never tried it so I don't really know what's going to happen. You'll probably go flying at 50 blocks per second.

WARNING: NEVER TRY THIS IN OTHER MODES EXCEPT CREATIVE.(Unless you have really strong armor, which is technically impossible without mods.

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This post could be improved by actually trying the suggestion and then reporting on the speed. It could be greatly improved with a video... ;) – Yamikuronue Feb 14 at 21:50

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