I've been occasionally dipping into Minecraft since 2011 and it's the exploration that keeps me coming back. Despite essentially just being randomly generated noise, I find Minecraft's landscapes really pretty, especially with a nice shader installed and it's always a great feeling when you crest a hill to discover a unique canyon or valley on the other side.

I started a new world in September after not playing the game for at least a year and to keep exploration more interesting and fresh this time around I installed Alex's Mobs, Aquaculture, Exotic Birds and mods that add every losing mob vote mob as well as the mobs from Minecraft Earth to make the world feel more alive. The way Alex's Mobs distributes appropriate animal species to each biome makes a huge difference in immersion, even if I have some issues with some of its more unbalanced monster mobs.

I also installed a couple of mods that added more randomly generated structures and dungeons though I basically had to go in and reduce the rates in which they spawned when it felt like the same graveyard got generated multiple times in one square kilometer. If anyone has more suggestions for more dungeon/ruin/structure mods that aren't too crazy, I'd be happy to hear them

The only regret I have with my current world is that I discovered a mod that changes world generation into continents and islands separated by water as opposed to Minecraft's usual endlessly stretching patchy landmass when I had already played the world for over a month