Hi, I play this game regularly and I speak from experience. Now, it depends on what you're using, a PC, Mac or Xbox.
Since I don't know much about Xbox, I'll give you the information for PC and Mac
Now, first, you need to get all your friends using the same internet if you just want a free private server. What you can do is create a survival world and in options, click on LAN settings and turn everything on to your preferences.
Now that you've established your temporary server, your friends can go into their multiplayer tab and join the server.
Once you close the world, they get shut down because you're running it. When you want to open the server again, just invite your friends over and open up the LAN world.
Hope this helped.