This might be the most surreal statement I’ve read this month, so thanks for the chuckle 
Assuming you’re playing on PC, it’s possible to save and restore your game. Find the folder where your Minecraft saves are stored (it’ll be something like C:\Users<your name>\AppData\Roaming.minecraft\saves) and duplicate the folder with your world in it. The game will see each folder as a separate game world. If you die, or a creeper blows up something you’ve spent a lot of time on, or you just get hopelessly lost, go back to the saves folder, delete the one where you got boned, dupe the copy again, and jump back in to wherever you were when you last backed up your game.
Tricky part, of course, is remembering to make the back-up regularly.
Water goes a long way in minecraft 
Yeah, the despawn timer starts counting down once the chunk is loaded. I’ve died in the nether, gotten pissed and not gone back for days and found my stuff floating around on the netherrack.
Creepers will destroy a portion of your stuff, though.
Reading this thread reminded me that I put minecraft aside for a bit of a lame reason - I couldn’t find melon seeds anywhere.
I’d built up to a good level and was having a first dig at dispatching the ender dragon. Failed at this - destroying the beacon things was hard as the towers were absolutely massive. So I reckoned some healing potions were in order, hence the melon seeds.
I have yet to find a jungle biome anywhere, and I’ve walked / rode the earth in search of them. I’ve found some seeds once in an abandoned mine, when I was still a noob at the game, and lost them 
Do you reckon you’d find an abandoned mine if you put your back into it? Got a bit bored with looking. Or just leave the healing potions and sort the dragon out with a bit of practice? My 7 yo loved playing it with me, and was actually asking me today why I stopped, so thinking of firing it back up.
You can try using a few enchanted golden apples (aka Notch Apple) – costs 72 gold, but you’ll be virtually unkillable.
Also, Minutor is a nice program which lets you view a zoomable map of your world. It hasn’t been updated in a long time, but should still work well enough to find mineshafts & stuff.
I like Journey Map mini map.
Try a mapping tool like mapcrafter. You can generate both overland and underground maps. Never get lost again! And locate underground features like abandoned mines.
/give Busy Scissors 362 64
except use whatever your minecraft name is.
Many thanks for the suggestions. I played a pretty simple survival game, so just using what I’d find - pretty sure I have gold coming out of my ears, so the enchanted apple is a possibility. Did a couple of ocean monuments prior to taking a break.
That being said, I’m curious to fire up a map just to prove that damn jungle exists! No idea why they spawn so infrequently on the world I’m playing.
Only eight blocks, on a flat surface.
I meant in relation to real life. IE using a bucket to solidify any size real lava would not work.
For those who enjoy watching Minecraft competitions on YouTube, the newest season of Mindcrack Ultra Hardcore started today.
But you can carry lava in a bucket!
I know. I was making a joke.
I’ve often wondered how Minecraft buckets work. I’ve never tried, but I’m reasonably sure if I were to put a bucket full of lava into my knapsack, things would not go well for me.
At all.
FYI, Chrome throws Security Error warnings on that site when I try to download it and claims “Attackers on mapcrafter.org might attempt to trick you into installing programs that harm your browsing experience (for example, by changing your homepage or showing extra ads on sites you visit).” and “Google Safe Browsing recently found harmful programs on mapcrafter.org.”
Sorry, hard to tell sometimes in text
Huh, I never had any problems with the old version, new version my virus scanner blocks it. I thought McAffee was jsut being over diligent like it usually is.
But what if you put the lava on a treadmill ?
That’s one half of a cobblestone generator…