How to Make a Nether Highway in Minecraft

A nether highway is the single fastest way to travel long distances in Minecraft survival. By exploiting the Nether’s 8:1 distance ratio and combining it with packed ice and a boat, you can cross tens of thousands of Overworld blocks in minutes. This guide covers everything from basic nether travel paths to fully optimized ice boat highways.

What Is a Nether Highway?

A nether highway is a cleared, safe pathway built inside the Nether that connects two or more nether portals. Because every block you travel in the Nether corresponds to 8 blocks in the Overworld, a 1,000-block highway in the Nether lets you traverse 8,000 blocks in the Overworld almost instantly.

Nether highways range from simple cobblestone walkways to elaborate ice boat tunnels capable of moving players at over 70 blocks per second (that is roughly 160 miles per hour in Minecraft scale).

Why Build One?

• Speed. Walking in the Overworld covers about 4.3 blocks per second. A boat on blue ice covers over 70 blocks per second. With the 8:1 ratio, that is equivalent to 560 blocks per second in Overworld distance.
• Safety. A properly enclosed highway protects you from ghasts, piglin brutes, and lava.
• Connectivity. Link your base to a stronghold, a mushroom island, a mesa biome, or a friend’s base thousands of blocks away.
• Server infrastructure. On multiplayer servers, nether highways become shared public transit systems.

Before You Start: Planning

Gather Your Coordinates

Before entering the Nether, write down the Overworld coordinates of your starting location and your destination. If you need a refresher on how coordinates work, read our guide on Minecraft coordinates explained.

You need to convert Overworld coordinates to Nether coordinates by dividing X and Z by 8:

• Overworld (800, 65, 1600) becomes Nether (100, 65, 200)
• Overworld (-2400, 70, 4000) becomes Nether (-300, 70, 500)

Use a nether portal calculator to get exact portal placement coordinates and avoid portal linking errors.

Choose Your Highway Style

There are three main types of nether highways, from simplest to most effective:

Style	Speed (blocks/sec)	Materials	Difficulty
Walking path	4.3	Cobblestone	Easy
Minecart rail	8.0	Rails, powered rails	Medium
Ice boat	40-72	Ice, boat	Hard

Ice boat highways are significantly faster than every other option and are the standard for any serious nether highway project.

Materials You Will Need

For a Basic Walking Highway

• 3-5 stacks of blast-resistant blocks (cobblestone, stone, deepslate, blackstone)
• Torches or other light sources
• A pickaxe with Efficiency IV or better
• Fire Resistance potions (strongly recommended)
• Building blocks for a portal frame (obsidian)

For an Ice Boat Highway

All of the above, plus:

• Blue ice (fastest), packed ice (good), or regular ice (slowest, melts near light sources)
• Boats (craft from any wood planks)
• Glass panes or walls for side rails
• A silk touch pickaxe for harvesting ice

Ice Speed Comparison

Ice Type	Boat Speed	Source
Regular ice	~40 blocks/sec	Frozen rivers/oceans, silk touch
Packed ice	~50 blocks/sec	Ice spikes biome, crafted from 9 ice
Blue ice	~72 blocks/sec	Crafted from 9 packed ice, icebergs

Blue ice is expensive (81 regular ice per blue ice block) but the speed difference is substantial over long distances. Many players use packed ice for most of the highway and blue ice only for the main trunk lines.

Step-by-Step: Building a Walking Highway

This is the foundation. Even if your end goal is an ice boat highway, start by clearing a safe path.

Step 1: Build Your Starting Portal

Place your starting nether portal at your Overworld base. Light it and enter the Nether. Write down the exact coordinates where you arrive in the Nether.

Step 2: Navigate to Y=120

The safest elevation for nether highways is at Y=119 to Y=121, just below the bedrock ceiling. At this height, you avoid almost all lava lakes, ghast spawns are less common, and the terrain is mostly solid netherrack that is easy to mine.

To get up there:

1. Pillar up with cobblestone or use scaffolding
2. Mine into the netherrack ceiling at around Y=120
3. Carve out a 2-block-high, 3-block-wide tunnel

Step 3: Clear the Path

Mine a straight tunnel from your starting portal coordinates toward your destination portal coordinates. Keep the tunnel at a consistent Y level. The tunnel should be:

• 2 blocks high minimum (3 is more comfortable)
• 3 blocks wide minimum (wider for ice boats)
• Completely enclosed on all sides to block ghast fireballs

Line the floor with blast-resistant blocks. Netherrack has low blast resistance, so a ghast fireball through an uncovered gap can ruin your day. Cobblestone, stone, or blackstone are all fine.

Step 4: Light the Tunnel

Place torches or other light sources every 8-12 blocks. This prevents zombie piglin spawns inside your highway (though they are not hostile unless provoked). Lanterns and shroomlights also work well.

Step 5: Build the Destination Portal

At the end of your highway, build a nether portal at the exact calculated coordinates. The portal in the Nether should be at:

• Nether X = Overworld destination X / 8
• Nether Z = Overworld destination Z / 8

Build the portal, light it, and go through. If you calculated correctly, you will emerge within a few blocks of your intended Overworld destination. If the portal links incorrectly, see the portal alignment section below.

Step-by-Step: Building an Ice Boat Highway

An ice boat highway is a walking highway upgraded with an ice track and rails to keep your boat on course. This is the endgame travel system.

Step 1: Widen the Tunnel

Your tunnel needs to be at least 3 blocks wide for a single-lane ice highway. For a two-lane highway (one in each direction), make it 5 blocks wide.

The height should be 3 blocks to give you headroom when you are in the boat.

Step 2: Place the Ice Track

Lay a single line of ice blocks (blue ice for maximum speed) down the center of your tunnel floor. This is the track your boat will glide on.

The track should be perfectly straight. Any turns in an ice boat highway are dangerous at high speed and require careful engineering. For now, stick to straight-line highways along one axis (pure X direction or pure Z direction).

Step 3: Add Side Rails

Place glass panes, walls, or fences on both sides of the ice track, one block above the ice. These prevent your boat from sliding off the track. Without rails, even a slight mouse movement sends you careening into the wall at 70 blocks per second.

The recommended layout for one lane (cross-section):

W . . . W
W I I I W
W W W W W

• W = Wall (cobblestone, blackstone, etc.)
• I = Ice (blue ice for best speed)
• . = Air (3 blocks high clearance)

The side rails sit on top of the wall blocks flanking the ice, one block above ice level.

Step 4: Riding the Highway

1. Place a boat on the ice track
2. Right-click to enter the boat
3. Hold forward (W key)
4. Steer minimally — the side rails keep you on track

On blue ice, you will be moving at roughly 72 blocks per second. That is equivalent to 576 Overworld blocks per second. A 10,000-block Overworld journey takes about 17 seconds.

Step 5: Build Off-Ramps

At each portal stop along the highway, build an off-ramp: a short section where the ice track ends and transitions to regular blocks. This slows your boat naturally. Add a portal room off to the side of the main highway so you can exit the boat and walk to the portal.

Never place portals directly on the highway track. At 70+ blocks per second, you will overshoot every time.

Portal Alignment Tips

Portal linking problems are the most common frustration with nether highways. Here is how to get it right.

How Portal Linking Works

When you enter a portal, Minecraft searches for the nearest active portal in the other dimension within a certain radius:

• Overworld to Nether: Searches 128 blocks in the Nether (equivalent to 1,024 Overworld blocks)
• Nether to Overworld: Searches 1,024 blocks in the Overworld

The game links you to the closest existing portal within that search radius. If none exists, it creates a new one.

The Golden Rule

Always build both portals manually at the mathematically correct coordinates. Do not rely on the game to auto-generate the paired portal. Auto-generated portals often appear at inconvenient locations and can cause linking conflicts with other nearby portals.

Fixing a Mislinked Portal

If your portal links to the wrong destination:

1. Go through the portal to the wrong destination
2. Note the coordinates
3. Break that incorrectly placed portal
4. Build a new portal at the correct coordinates (Overworld X and Z divided by 8 for Nether placement, or multiplied by 8 for Overworld placement)
5. Light the new portal and test

Avoiding Portal Conflicts

If you have multiple portals relatively close together (within 1,024 Overworld blocks of each other), linking conflicts can occur. To prevent this:

• Build each nether-side portal at the exact mathematically correct coordinates
• Space portals at least 128 Nether blocks apart (1,024 Overworld blocks)
• If portals must be closer, manually build both ends and test each one

A nether portal calculator handles this math automatically and helps you avoid linking conflicts.

Advanced: Highway Design Patterns

The Hub and Spoke Model

Build a central hub at the Nether coordinates corresponding to your main base, then run highways outward in the four cardinal directions (positive X, negative X, positive Z, negative Z). Branch highways connect to the main trunk lines at right angles.

This is the standard layout for multiplayer server highway systems. Everyone builds off the same trunk lines.

Turns and Intersections

Turns at full ice boat speed are nearly impossible without crashing. There are two solutions:

1. Slow zones. Replace ice with regular blocks for 20-30 blocks before a turn. The boat slows down, you make the turn, then accelerate again on ice.
2. Separate parallel highways. Build one highway along the X axis and another along the Z axis. Players transfer between them at intersection hubs.

Two-Lane Highways

For busy multiplayer servers, build two parallel ice tracks (one in each direction) separated by a wall. Head-on collisions at combined speeds of 140+ blocks per second are not survivable for your boat.

Nether Highway Safety

Ghast Protection

At Y=120 near the ceiling, ghast spawns are less common but not impossible. Ensure your tunnel is fully enclosed. Use slabs on the ceiling to prevent spawns above you.

Piglin and Hoglin Spawns

Light levels of 11 or higher prevent piglin and hoglin spawns in your tunnel. Space torches every 8 blocks or use more permanent lighting like lanterns or shroomlights embedded in the walls.

Lava Pockets

When mining near the ceiling, you will occasionally break into lava pockets. Always carry a bucket and a fire resistance potion. Build with a shield in your offhand.

Emergency Supplies

Keep a chest at each portal stop with:

• Fire Resistance potions
• Extra boats
• Cobblestone for repairs
• Food
• A spare pickaxe

Resource-Efficient Tips

Farming Ice

Ice spikes biomes are the most efficient source of packed ice. Mine with silk touch to collect ice blocks, then craft up:

• 9 ice = 1 packed ice
• 9 packed ice = 1 blue ice
• Therefore: 81 ice = 1 blue ice

For a long highway, you need significant quantities. A 1,000-block blue ice highway requires 1,000 blue ice blocks, which is 81,000 regular ice blocks. Consider using packed ice for the main build and reserving blue ice for only the longest trunk lines.

Using the Nether Roof (Java Edition Only)

In Java Edition, it is possible to get above the Nether bedrock ceiling at Y=128. The space above the ceiling is an empty void with no mob spawns, no lava, and no obstructions. Building ice boat highways on top of the Nether roof is popular because:

• Zero mob spawns means no lighting needed
• No terrain to mine through
• Perfectly flat building surface
• Complete safety

Note that getting above the ceiling requires using an Ender pearl through bedrock, which some servers consider an exploit. Check server rules before building there.

Common Mistakes

Building at low Y levels. Highways below Y=100 run through lava lakes, soul sand valleys, and high mob density areas. Always build at Y=119-121.

Forgetting return portals. Every portal stop needs a portal that goes back to the Overworld and one that connects to the highway. Test all links before inviting friends.

Using regular ice near torches. Regular ice melts when placed near light sources with a light level of 11 or higher. Use packed ice or blue ice, which do not melt.

Not securing the highway. An open, unlit tunnel in the Nether will fill with piglins, hoglins, and the occasional ghast. Enclose, light, and maintain your highway.

Summary

A nether highway transforms your Minecraft world from a collection of distant, disconnected locations into a connected network you can traverse in seconds. Start with a simple walking path at Y=120, then upgrade to a blue ice boat track when resources allow. Get the portal math right using our nether portal calculator, understand how coordinates work, and you will have the fastest travel system the game offers.