How to make bamboo rafts in Minecraft

The Minecraft 1.20 update added several new features, including making items like a bamboo raft. This came into the game alongside the Cherry Blossom forest feature and so many other updates. If you’re looking to quickly traverse a body of water, making this particular item will aid you. Not to mention, the bamboo items do look fantastic. If you’re trying to build this item, look no further.

Thankfully, this item can be made on any edition of Minecraft, except the Education Edition, and older platforms like PS3, Xbox 360, and the Wii-U. Everyone else can make the bamboo raft if they want.

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Making a bamboo raft in Minecraft

Ingredients needed

• Bamboo Planks x5

Unfortunately, other types of wood in Minecraft will not allow you to make a raft. You could make a boat, but that’s not what we’re crafting today. The bamboo raft is not material heavy, either. All you need is 5 Bamboo Planks, and you’re ready to get started.

Follow this simple recipe, and you'll have your very own raft (Image via Mojang Studios)

Open up the 3x3 crafting grid, and get ready. You’ll be putting bamboo planks in the first and third slots at the top. Leave the top middle open. Then, you’ll put three of the planks across the second row, filling these up. Leave the bottom three empty as well.

This should give you the ability to craft your bamboo raft in Minecraft. There was a reason we left the blank space in the recipe, though. Open up the crafting grid again, and place your newly made raft in there with a chest next to it.

It's incredibly simple to make a bamboo raft (Image via Mojang Studios)

Completing this will give you a raft with a chest on it, so you can travel and take important items with you. It’s worth noting that doing it this way will only let you transport one person on the raft.

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How to use a bamboo raft in Minecraft

The process is the same as when using a boat in the game. Urge it into the water by walking into it. Then, right-click or use your secondary action key, and you’ll begin cruising down the waterways of your world.

You can also bring an animal friend on your adventures (Image via Mojang Studios)

You use your movement keys, however, you’ve bound them to move along. If you didn’t put a chest on, you could also push a mob onto the raft to go along with you. Rafts and boats are essentially the same thing, so it comes down to aesthetics.

You craft and interact with them the same way, and neither has a particular advantage. Both are perfectly serviceable at traveling across water, so build whichever you fancy more. If you'd like, there are more complex, satisfying raft designs you can make in-game.

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Minecraft has many things you can find and build as of patch 1.20. For example, you can go and search out Cherry Blossom groves if you want to seek out something new and pretty.