Transportation. Am I missing something?

We built near spawn. We started the story missions, first one (not the trader) was about 5,000 blocks away. This was do able and I enjoyed the archive, we got the glider. Once we started chapter 2 and saw the next way point was 13,000 blocks away. We thought the glider would help. It’s not a realistic solution. We made the walk/raft all the way to the Lazaret. we got the next map and the village was 28,000 blocks (another 15,000 blocks). We were already drained. We did not build a sailboat because there were no big oceans. It would be some water then land then water and so on. Not functional for sail boat because you can’t pick it up. Same problem with elks and water. We finally made it to the village, a lot of trader and more locations to go. But now this point of Interest is 28,000 blocks away from home. Are we missing something. This trip takes extremely long, we don’t even want to make it again. Is there a better or faster way to travel in this game??