Minecraft wiki entry for The_second_day, associated text: Once you get a compass, use it to locate the world spawn point, and build a shelter there (assuming your home isn't already in sight). Once you've done that, you can carry a spare bed with you as you explore, and skip nights and storms by sleeping in it and breaking it in the morning to carry along. This leaves you without a spawn point, but if you do die, you still have a shelter nearby when you respawn. Stock the shelter with spare equipment, and place a bed too, in case you respawn at night or during a storm. Then you can just go to sleep and fetch your items by daylight, if your items are less than 5 minutes away (they despawn after 5 minutes).