To me exploring in Minecraft ends up taking up more of my playtime than building or fighting. You never know what awaits behind the next hill, mountain, or body of water.
Sometimes long trips away from my base are necessary in order to gather materials that aren’t available in my current area.
Having a map on you certainly helps you know how to get back home.
Though, the problem isn’t crossing that distance. The problem is crossing it twice in order to get back to your base or spawn point.
The easiest solution would be to just teleport back to spawn, but how?
Setting up a Spawn Point
When you first start in a world, singleplayer or multiplayer, you will have an assigned Spawn Point at a random location.
No matter how far away you go, when you die you will return to that exact block you had started off on.
Same will go for any other Players that join your world. They will spawn in that area and when they die they respawn there.
However, sometimes the original Spawn Point isn’t all that ideal. The easiest way of changing your Spawn Point and placing it at a better location is by using a Bed.
Simply place it down and right click on it; you do not have to sleep through the night.
You will see the game telling you in chat that a “Respawn point has been set”.
The next time you die you will be teleported back to your Bed.
But a Bed isn’t the only way to set up a Spawn Point. In Minecraft you can set up a collective Spawn Point for all players.
That way, even if you or somebody else’s Bed is destroyed, you will still be returned to the chosen coordinate. It is good to set up your own spawn point in case you travel far away from the original one.
In order to set up this spawn point you will have to use the command:
/spawnpoint
If you would rather focus on the coordinates there are ways to find out the exact coordinates of a block you wish to target.
Returning to Your Spawn Point
If you have been travelling for quite a bit, returning to your Spawn point by foot is probably a big task. This is where you have several options for returning faster.
One of your options, that is certainly easier than just doing commands, would be dying.
Death will make you spawn back on your Bed or at your spawn point. However, dying can mean you will lose all of the Items you have on your character.
If you do not wish to lose all of your gathered up items and gear, consider enabling “Keep Inventory” or using an Ender Chest.
An Ender Chest will keep all your items until you find another Ender Chest from which you can retrieve your items. They can be built using Obsidian and an Eye of Ender.
Keep Inventory, on the other hand, is a command (on Java edition) or a toggle option (on Bedrock Edition) that allows you to not lose any of your items upon death. This means you can die at any point and not lose a single Item, only your Experience and Levels.
Using Commands
Death isn’t the only way of returning to your spawn point. Commands are here to make things a little simpler for us.
One way of using commands to go back to your Spawn Point is by using the /teleport command and your coordinates. If you know the exact coordinates for your Spawn Point you can simply use them to teleport to spawn in Minecraft.
/tp [PlayerName] ~x ~y ~z
If you happen to not know the exact coordinates of your Spawn Point you can use the command on another person and rely on them to come back.
/tp [PlayerName] [OtherPlayerName]
This works in the way that the first Player listed in the command teleports to the second. Keep this in mind so you wouldn’t accidentally teleport your friend to yourself and lose your spawn for good.
Unfortunately, if you are alone and you haven’t written down your Spawn Point coordinates you may have to depend on the death method. Putting your items in a Chest will at least keep your items from despawning.
A command to teleport directly to the Spawn itself without the use of coordinates does not exist in the game yet.
What to do Next
Having a respawn anchor may be one way to save you, especially if you are taking your time exploring the Nether.
This special block allows you to respawn in the Nether when you die and it is the alternative to using a bed, which usually cannot be placed in the Nether.
