Some may argue that radio is going out of fashion, but I discovered the most addictive live radio site online, and I am hooked. It’s called Radio Garden. Although it offers a mobile app for both Android and iOS, you can also use this service with just a web browser on a PC or mobile device.
I’ve spent the last few days using this service on my PC, and I feel like I’m living in the good old days again. It’s the reason I’ve started listening to 24/7 live radio stations instead of playlists.
The world comes alive in sound
Spinning the globe to tune into real voices from everywhere
When you navigate to Radio Garden, you’re greeted with a spinning globe. Scattered around it are green dots that look like constellations. However, each one of them represents a specific location with a radio station. I clicked on one of the dots at random, and in seconds, I was locked into a radio station in Iceland.
The feeling of turning the globe and listening to voices from different continents is quite addictive. It is also a different feeling from the way I traditionally locate radio stations. I wasn’t searching by genre or popularity but exploring by geography. After spinning the globe, I can zoom into small towns. It feels very much like time-traveling with Google Earth, just with sound.
A design that turns exploration into obsession
Radio Garden’s minimalist globe interface makes you lose track of time
While modern apps typically have several menu items showcasing how feature-rich they are, Radio Garden threads a minimalist path. You get a dark, glowing globe that you can spin, zoom, or click on, and the menu items are condensed to the bottom left and right. The absence of clutter makes the globe a satisfying main feature.
The menu at the bottom left displays the station’s name, the city and country where it’s located, and the local time. Clicking the city name expands the menu, displaying other radio stations within the city, and just underneath, other radio stations in neighboring cities.
The fluid transitions are what draw you in. Stations start playing the moment you land on a dot, and just by scrolling a little, the music morphs almost instantly into a different rhythm and language. Because of how seamless and easy it is, you may lose track of time just exploring.
I love how you don’t need an account to explore and listen to music. You land on the website, and without logging in, you start listening. The interface achieves what several platforms fail at: it makes discovery feel like play.
A personal tour through global culture
Discovering local stations, accents, and playlists you’d never find otherwise
The carefully put-together menu gets you hooked on exploration. When I stumble on a station I like, I often find myself listening to and comparing other stations in the city and in neighboring cities. After two hours of listening to radio stations in Santiago, Chile, I began to develop a taste for traditional folk music, such as cueca.
I once zoomed into a dot that connected me to a station in Freetown, Sierra Leone. I caught a vibrant soccer debate in an interesting but deep variant of Pidgin English. Minutes later, I was listening to soft jazz on a midnight show in Finland. Each station felt like it was teleporting me to a new culture.
I love how raw it is. Streaming services typically feel algorithmically clean—serving perfectly mixed, normalized, and curated music. However, Radio Garden offers the real texture of radio, with jingles, local ads, awkward silences, and sudden laughter.
I also found it very educational. After a while of listening, you start to pick up on regional humor, cultural quirks, and you recognize speech rhythms. You get a robust immersion without leaving your computer.
The little touches that make it even more fun
From floating balloon rides to sharing your radio discoveries
Beyond the core radio experience that I loved, Radio Garden bundles some playful features that make it even more fun. Balloon Ride Radio is my favorite. This feature randomly selects a station and then gradually zooms out to create the illusion of a balloon ride. It allows you to guess what part of the world you’re in as it zooms out. Once you click the button to reveal the city, it automatically chooses another random station and repeats.
It also has a share button that I may have overused. Whenever I find a station I really like, I can share a link with my friends, and they join in on the experience.
I also appreciate the Lock feature, which keeps a single station fixed and playing as I navigate through the rest of the globe. I can add stations to my favorites and visit them with a few clicks the next time I visit.
I can’t stop spinning the globe
My advice is: do not visit Radio Garden if you have serious work to do. The world is large, and Radio Garden ensures you get hooked on exploring all the radio stations it has.
What keeps me coming back is how personal it feels. It doesn’t feel like mere radio, but a complete immersion with cultures and locations. It’s just as oddly satisfying as a website that lets you view publicly shared window views.
