If you want to venture beyond Minecraft’s Overworld and down into the Nether, you’ll first need to craft yourself a Nether Portal. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the steps needed to build a Nether Portal, and we’ll also include some unique portal designs you can try.

A Nether Portal is crafted with Flint and Steel and at least 10 pieces of obsidian.

You’ll need a diamond pickaxe to mine the obsidian blocks. Obsidian can be found while mining near pools of lava, or you can create it yourself by pouring a bucket of water over lava. You can even get an infinite supply with our lava farm guide.

Mine the obsidian until you have at least 10 blocks. Then, shape it as a rectangle with two blocks on the top and bottom and place three pieces on each side, as shown in the image above. You’ll use flint and steel at the frame to light and activate the portal. This is the most basic portal you can make to get to the Nether.

However, you don’t have to be simple with your Nether Portal design. Some players like to get really fancy with the design, and you can even create something that fits the theme of the world you’re trying to build. We include several Nether Portal build designs in the images below so you can get an idea of the types of portals you can create.

The wood Nether Portal design shared by Eli’s Art on YouTube has a very sleek and simple aesthetic. This features both oak and spruce wood with leaves and other various decor elements.

This is a portal design perfect for building a base inside the Cherry Blossom biome. You could always craft a more simplistic structure just made of cherry blossom wood like our first suggestion, but the Cherry Blossom tree design shared by Goldrobin on YouTube has a more unique and cozy vibe. This build uses natural cherry wood, cherry planks, and various crimson wood pieces to create the tree-shaped Nether Portal design.

You can even use cherry wood and planks to create a similar design to the simple wood design shared above.

In my shared Minecraft Realm, we have a Ghast portal modeled after the large ghost-like mobs flying all around the Nether.

This can be created with quartz blocks for the body and red concrete or redstone blocks for the eyes. We placed a ladder on the back of a tentacle to climb inside and reach the portal.

If you’re a fan of pretty rocks, geode-style designs can be a fun way to create a more elaborate look for your Nether Portal.

The image above is a geode portal in one of my worlds, which is a bit on the small-to-medium size, but I have seen some fairly large geode portals created for Minecraft. It’s up to you how big you want to go.

This is crafted from obsidian blocks, amethyst blocks, and amethyst clusters.

Castles are always fun to build, and you can even create a castle-shaped Nether Portal like the one shared by Remarked on YouTube. The materials used in the image above include concrete, chiseled polished blackstone, and deepslate, but you can also try out other blocks to change the aesthetic of the castle. For example, mossy stone bricks can give you a ruined castle vibe.

For something more elegant, you could always try a Nether Portal build similar to this gazebo design by IT-TVGaming on YouTube. This is built mostly using quartz blocks and stairs with leaves, lanterns, and various items for decor. You could also create a gazebo from wood for a more rustic town vibe.

If you love fantasy and medieval themes, you could always get more elaborate with your design and shape your Nether Portal as a giant sword. The image above is from a tutorial shared by Goldrobin on YouTube. This sword was built using materials such as obsidian, deepslate, amethyst, purple stained-glass panes, and crimson stairs.

You can also do a simple Nether Portal design with a focus on its surrounding area, such as this garden-themed build shared by Kalarmey on YouTube. For this, you can use the portal design featured here or even something like the simple wooden build mentioned above. Then, the focus of the design would feature a garden and pond. You can fill this out with flowers, bushes, bamboo, sugar cane, and even bring in some cute honey bees.