Where to find the Wandering Trader in Minecraft

The Wandering Trader is a villager-style Minecraft mob that travels throughout worlds. It brings its llamas in tow and offers trades that players won’t often find in villages.

The Wandering Trader possesses unique spawning mechanics in the game, which means finding it can be tricky for players who don’t know how its spawning works.

The Wandering Trader’s spawning is somewhat random, but it often favors the player. This can sound a little confusing, but it’s quite simple when broken down.

According to the vanilla game’s spawning rules, there can only be one Wandering Trader present at a time in the game’s loaded chunks. As a result, finding this lone mob can take a little searching if it doesn’t appear outright.

How the Wandering Trader spawns in Minecraft

Within Minecraft’s generation boundaries, the Wandering Trader will attempt to spawn 24000 ticks (20 real-life minutes or one in-game day) after a world is created. If there’s no existing Wandering Trader in the loaded chunks around the player, the game will continue to attempt spawning the trader until it succeeds.

The initial spawn chance of the Wandering Trader begins at 2.5% and caps at 7.5%. This means there is an average of approximately 14 in-game days for the trader to spawn.

Over time, the Wandering Trader will de-spawn and restart the cycle. This means players will want to find it while the trader is active. The trader is one of the few mobs that will de-spawn even if it has a name tag attached to it, so players should keep this in mind.

Regardless, the Wandering Trader can appear in three locations within the game’s loaded chunks. It can appear within 48 blocks of the player, by a claimed bell within a village, or randomly in the environment. However, the game’s generation will prioritize proximity to the player.

With that in mind, the best bet for players to find a Wandering Trader without using spawn eggs or commands is to spend time in close proximity to a village. This should allow Minecraft’s spawning mechanics to either place the trader close to the player or near the village’s central bell, where it can be easily sought out.

However, the Wandering Trader will appear just about anywhere (even on Skyblock maps or secluded islands) as long as the location is deemed safe for it to spawn.

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For the most part, if players are looking for the Wandering Trader, they’ll need to be patient. This particular mob will make its presence known over time, though staying near its preferred locations, like villages, helps in the search.