My Cape Verdean friend Evelise Gomes told me about a world radio website called Radio Garden a few weeks ago, but I didn’t have much of a chance to check it out. Then another friend Pat Darrin just reminded me of it. After playing around on the site, I am completely blown away.
On Radio Garden, you tune in and point your cursor wherever in the world you want to hear LIVE local radio, and you’re there. Radio Garden only started in December 2016, and there are already 8,000 stations on it and many more added every day. I’ve listened to live radio streams from the Philippines, Thailand, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Togo, Nigeria, Morocco, and more. The site provides the name of the station and its location once you click on a green dot representing the location. I’m knocked out by the ease of use as well as by the fact that it can give you a sense of what is happening musically elsewhere on the planet just by selecting a geographical location.
I hope you’ll give it a try. When I first went to the site, it took me to a local Burbank, CA station, probably because it is a strong signal here where I live in Marina del Rey. But it’s easy to move your cursor around and visit all the other green dots all over the world. Use your mouse to zoom in or out to visit other countries. You can tune in practically everywhere, although sometimes you will see on the upper right side that a station isn’t available. If so, just go explore and find something else! For me, a short local ad has sometimes played when a new station is selected, but the stream is otherwise uninterrupted afterwards.
I’ve learned a lot already by tuning in. My favorite discoveries so far include:
In case you missed it, here is a recent article about Radio Garden on NPR which explains the site’s origins and how quickly it is growing. If you have big ears like I do and love to discover new music from around the world, I urge you to check it out!