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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
    Commented Mar 6, 2012 at 4:05

13 Answers 13

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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
    Commented Apr 28, 2011 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 Yap
    Commented Apr 28, 2011 at 3:29
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    The best transit system I've seen for the Nether involves long, cobblestone shelters from one location to the next. If you're going to a brand new location, just build one out from a shelter and build a portal at the end. If you want to connect two separate places, you'll need to locate where both portals are in relation to one another in the Nether (which will roughly correlate to the main world) then build your path/shaft from one to the other. Make sure your path is short, or Ghasts might spawn within it.
    – Zibbobz
    Commented Oct 9, 2013 at 20:04
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    As for the new update you could use horses as well. As stated in this question gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/164506/…, you can get horses in the nether and travel there. (this also is way cheaper than finding/crafting rails),
    – Marco Geertsma
    Commented Apr 23, 2014 at 7:26
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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
    Commented Apr 25, 2011 at 14:22
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    The nether now works in multiplayer.
    – Zoredache
    Commented Oct 3, 2011 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
    Commented Apr 12, 2013 at 18:06
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With the introduction to horses, riding a horse through the Nether is currently the fastest method of travel. It is also more versatile, can traverse raw terrain easier, and is not limited to tracks.

If you want to explore a completely new area, bring along 10 obsidian + flint & steel, travel by horse for a few minutes in the Nether, plop down an exit portal and you have a fresh, brand new area.

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    Any comparison of how fast the average horse travels compared to minecart?
    – dlras2
    Commented Sep 12, 2013 at 21:53
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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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    Be warned that this will greatly drain your hunger bar, so having lots of food on you (preferably something saturating like Steak) is advised. Some servers may also kick you for speedhacking.
    – user79446
    Commented Jan 13, 2015 at 13:58
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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

tdm*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
    Commented Dec 31, 2012 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
    Commented Feb 11, 2013 at 15:46
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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
    Commented Aug 25, 2012 at 23:49
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For some reason, there is still no proper table about max speed, so I made one myself. Please add any more information you have, either in the comments or via [email protected].

Maybe someone can migrate this to the english minecraft wiki.

Survival mode travelling, ordered by speed

Method
100 blocks
blocks/sec
Both
ways?Expense
Ref

Respawning / End portal Instant Instant No Inventory
Ender pearl TNT** (demo)∞ ∞ No TNT
Horizontal TNT bump ? ? No Immense
Collision bump (demo) ? (0-2) ? (50-x) No Cows
Elytra, 52° downwards 1.48 sec 67.50 Yes Elytra wiki
Boat on ice 3.48 s*** 28.78*** Yes Silk T.YT
Ender pearl, 1 per sec ~4.3 sec ~23 Yes Pearls YT
Boat row, 20 clicks/sec 4.76 sec 21.03 No Wood YT
2 block high, ice & trap
doors (demo) 4.97 sec
20.12
Yes
Silk T.
& wood YT
Horse*, sprint, speed II5.02 sec 19.92 Yes PotionsYT
Boat row (demo) 6.64 sec 15.06 No Wood YT
Horse*, sprinting 7.06 sec 14.17 Yes YT
Minecart 12.50 sec 8.00 Yes Iron YT
Boat on water 12.50 sec 8.00 Yes Boat wiki
Pig & carrot on a stick 12.50 sec 8.00 Yes Carrotswiki
Running, sprint, speedII12.80 sec 7.81 Yes PotionsYT
Running, sprint, jumping14.17 sec 7.06 Yes YT

Remarks:

  • Times were measured @ Vers. 1.10 (2016 July)
  • Accuracy: ~0.03 sec
  • As noted - if travelling in the nether, the overworld speed can be multiplied by 8
  • Measured ender pearl travel speed equals the wiki entry. Throwing them up 45° in the air will give the longest teleportation distance, however the fastest way is using them one after another, in a way once the cooldown has finished (1 pearl / sec)
  • Sprinting or drinking speed potions does not affect boat travelling speed

  • * The horse was summoned with attribute movementSpeed: Base:0.3375 which is the maximum horse speed available, afaik.

  • ** Bumping a thrown ender pearl with TNT can get you thousands of blocks in just a few seconds. However, if the chunks on its route are not loaded, it is rather useless. Only interesting on an intensely populated server.

  • *** Boat on ice: Wiki says 40 b/s which does not match the reference video in this table

    (edit: maybe it needs some time to accelerate and actually *is* 40 b/s)
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    With constant 52° down elytra in the nether you could get to the world border in ~15 hours. But of course you can't look down 52° all the time. But now there are fireworks. How fast can they make you? There was a Xisuma Mythbusting episode on something like this, but I don't know if he answered this exact question.
    – Fabian Röling
    Commented Oct 25, 2017 at 10:29
  • It would actually be possible, you would just have to land a few times to place down a shulker box full or rockets. You would need 11 of those shulker boxes. So you could actually fly around a giant circle with radius 28 000 000 (almost to the overworld border, but still ~4000 maximum render distances away) with just your inventory and ender chest full of shulker boxes full of boost 3 fireworks.
    – Fabian Röling
    Commented Oct 25, 2017 at 10:32
  • But to just get to the world border, there was a much faster way until 1.12.1: bugs.mojang.com/browse/MC-86850 There it was possible in maybe even just one minute, if you're very fast with building nether portals.
    – Fabian Röling
    Commented Oct 25, 2017 at 10:32
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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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Use Boat, on blue ice, in the nether ceiling. You can travel up to 160 blocks/second, and in the nether, 160*8=1280 blocks/second. Only one problem- your boat will probably break at the end.

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Put boat on nettherack in nether close to a lava lake and jump in.

Throw fire resist splash potion over yourself and the boat. Boats are affected by potions.

Now sail over the lava.

PS: Be carefull of underlava hills stopping and breaking your boat...

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    Boats do not sail in lava. They burn.
    – Rainbow Dash
    Commented Sep 19, 2015 at 16:46
  • But won't the potion work on the boat, since entities are affected by potions?
    – Phoenix
    Commented Apr 19, 2020 at 3:45
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Use

/effect @p 1 255 255.

It gives you the speed buff for 255 seconds. Try it in the nether.

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  • I believe he was asking what the fastest buildable method was.
    – Jeeva
    Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 12:42
  • @Jeeva however it seems to be a suitable answer even it's a bit late :D
    – Nitro.de
    Commented Jul 2, 2015 at 12:48
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    This gives you speed 255, which is overkill. With this speed, one tap of "W" and you will go speeding across the nether . . . Into a pool of lava.
    – Rainbow Dash
    Commented Sep 19, 2015 at 16:45
  • @RainbowDash what about pressing Shift, and placing blocks so you "slide" the way you want?
    – user143228
    Commented Nov 15, 2016 at 15:56
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My method is the following

  1. Place rail so it faces sideways in front of you.
  2. Count the rail as one space. Add 4 spaces in front of rail.
  3. Place rail on the 4th space & repeat steps 1-2 until the rail reaches your destination.
  4. Place minecarts on rails.
  5. Now go to first minecart and hop on it.
  6. Look at the bottom of next minecart in front.

now hold right click in this position until you reach your destination.

You should travel at about 25 blocks per second.

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I've played with it and I'm pretty certain I found the faster way to travel in minecraft. You need to wait for rain and have a trident of riptide. You are also going to need and elytra equipped. You can use riptide while you are flying and go at incredible speeds only while it is raining. It's a pretty expensive way to get around but boy does it work.

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