Wander
Flight & Ship Tracking
Aircraft, cargo ships, trains and satellites moving live on a map. Startling the first time you realise how much is in the air at once.
14 sites
Unfiltered aircraft tracking, including the private jets and military flights that the commercial trackers politely agree to hide.
- <1 min
- Desktop
Live flight tracking with airport arrival boards and playback of earlier flights, formerly known as RadarBox and still free to browse.
Where every cruise ship in the world currently is, with deck plans and itineraries attached, for reasons entirely your own.
Flight tracking with the operational detail attached: delays, diversions, taxi times and the filed route rather than a tidy curve.
Every aircraft in the sky right now on one map. Click any of them for the route, the aircraft type and how far it still has to go.
Live air traffic control audio from towers around the world, so you can listen to a controller sequencing arrivals into Heathrow while you work.
- 10 min
- Sound on
Live positions of the world's merchant fleet, container ships down to tugs, most vessels with photographs taken by shore spotters.
Every train on the Tokyo rail network moving in real time across a 3D map, with the aircraft landing at Haneda thrown in.
- <1 min
- Desktop
Live tracking for thousands of satellites, with pass predictions for your postcode and a map of everything above you right now.
- 10 min
- Desktop
A research-grade open flight tracking network run by universities, with live maps and the raw historical data behind them.
- 10 min
- Desktop
Live flight tracking with an augmented-reality view, for pointing a phone at whatever just went over the garden and naming it.
Every train on the British network with the signalling data attached: which loop it was held in, where it lost four minutes and why.
Ship positions and port arrivals on a fast, uncluttered map, ideal for watching a delivery of your own crawl across an ocean.
The space station's position, ground track and next passes over you, with an orbital countdown that is oddly hard to stop watching.
How we picked these
Every entry in Detour is hand-sorted rather than scraped: filed under one category, given one to three moods, and placed in a time band for how quickly it pays off. The practical facts — cost, sign-up, sound, device and whether it is safe at a desk — are recorded per site and shown on every card, so you can rule things out before you click.
Flight & Ship Tracking: questions
How many sites are in Flight & Ship Tracking?
14 sites, each hand-sorted by category, mood and how long it takes to pay off.
Which of these sites are free with no sign-up?
14 of the 14 are free and need no account. None of them are paid.
Do these sites work on a phone, and are they safe for work?
10 of 14 work on a phone; the rest are desktop only. 14 are safe for work and 13 work with the sound off.