Minecraft villagers are a big part of the game. They provide players with trades and various other features - defending a village and creating a community is always exciting. However, moving villagers around is much harder than moving an animal, as they cannot be attached to leads. In this article, we are going to list out the best methods of how to move villagers in Minecraft.

1. Use boats

The easiest way to move villagers in Minecraft is to use a boat. Make a boat and place it in front of a villager as it is walking. After it gets into the boat, drive it to your desired location. Moving a boat on land is fairly slow, but if you get access to flowing water, it would become the fastest way to travel.

A villager on a boat
A villager on a boat in Minecraft

However, the crucial weakness of this method is that you cannot move a boat upward - they can only go across an equal world level or lower. This means you will have to clear the road for longer distances.

Ice Bridge
This method requires a bit of preparation to be effective.

Sliding on ice roads with a boat is actually one of the fastest methods of travel in the game. When boats are on any variant of ice blocks, they can be controlled as easily as if they were in water, and can travel at immense speeds thanks to the slippery nature of the ice.

2. Use minecarts

This method is mainly used for relocating your whole village... or moving multiple villagers to a new location. It is quick but costly, as you need a lot of resources and preparation. To do this, trap a villager in a small space then build the railway into it. Move the minecart directly next to them so that they have no choice but to get on.

Minecart
Move villagers in Minecraft using minecarts

Repeat it until you move all the villagers out of the site. Overall, the main obstacle here is laying down the rails - it can take a lot of time and effort. Only do this if you plan on using the rail later for some other purposes.

3. Cure zombie method

This method is also pretty costly, but at least it is fast. Firstly, you need to find one or more zombies and get chased. Keep running to the location you want them to be... and upon reaching it, hit them with a Splash Potion of Weakness. Feed the zombies Enchanted Golden Apples to cure them.

You need to do this at night to prevent the zombies from getting burned up by the sun.

Zombie Villager
Zombie Villager will chase you around.

4. Build corridors

To do this, trap all villagers to prevent them from moving around. Afterward, create a simple one-block-tall corridor toward the location you need your villagers to get to. Lure a zombie nearby to make the villagers run in the corridor toward the intended location.

Overall, this is one of the faster methods to move villagers around. However, you still need to build a corridor for it, which is a lot of effort.

Build a simple corridor
Building a simple narrow corridor is a good way to lure villagers.

5. Place job blocks

Villagers automatically locate job blocks nearby and get to them. Players can make use of this AI mechanic to move unemployed villagers around by placing a job block then removing it. However, it is fairly hard to use this method for long distances, as it is much slower than walking.

job blocks
Various job blocks in Minecraft

It is best to combine this with the boat method to allow traversal to a higher elevation.

6. Use Water Elevator

In order to move villagers to a higher or lower elevation, using a Water Elevator is a good idea. Players can make a water elevator in Minecraft with Soul Sand and Magma

Basically, this water elevator works by using the interaction of Soul Sand and Magma Block while underwater. Soul Sand releases bubble upward and push any entity up underwater while Magma pulls any entity down while underwater. The bubbles created by Soul Sand and Magma provide you with extra air to breathe. However, all the water blocks in your elevator need to be source blocks for this to work.

You can start from the top and use your Water Bucket to pour the water down. Place Kelp on every water block to make them a source block.

7. Nether portal

The Nether portal is actually an easy method to literally teleport between bases. Whenever a player walks about one block in the Nether, they walk about eight blocks in the Overworld in the same direction. This means a combination of the Nether portal with any of the other transportation methods can allow players to travel between bases in the Overworld at 1/8 the time.

Nether Portal
Be careful, as if you are close enough to your original nether portal you will be transported back to it.

The downside of this method is that it is fairly costly. Players need a lot of resources to create multiple nether portals and connect them together.

>>> Read more: Top 5 Best Minecraft Mods For New Dimensions (2022)