Twenty live webcams we would open first, chosen by hand from the cameras on Port of Cams: wildlife, volcanoes, surf, cities, mountains and the northern lights. Because it is always day somewhere and night somewhere else, the list below puts the cameras that are worth watching at this moment first.
The player picks the best camera for this moment when the page loads, and starts it muted.
Scenery and wildlife cameras come first while they are in daylight, aurora cameras while their sky is properly dark (the sun more than 12° below the horizon), and city and volcano cameras after dusk, though they are worth a look any time. Cameras the health checker reports offline drop to the bottom.
Tundra Buggy Lodge, near Churchill, Manitoba
Live video
Every autumn the bears of western Hudson Bay gather on the tundra near Churchill to wait for the sea ice, and this camera sits on a Tundra Buggy lodge in the middle of them. October and November are the only months the show runs, so this is the cam to watch now.
Best time: Daylight, about 8 AM–5 PM Central, October to mid-November
Katmai National Park, Alaska
Live video
The most famous wildlife stream on the internet: brown bears standing on the lip of a waterfall, catching sockeye salmon in mid-air. Late in the season the falls go quiet for long stretches, so give it a few minutes before moving on.
Best time: Daylight, Alaska time: July for the salmon run, September for the fattest bears
Southern & East Africa
Live video
Africam’s round-the-clock feed cuts between its cameras at waterholes on African reserves, so the frame goes wherever the animals are drinking: elephants, buffalo, giraffe and, on a lucky evening, lions coming down to the water.
Best time: First and last light, about 6–9 AM and 4–7 PM South Africa time
Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park, FL
Live video
An underwater view in the clear, warm spring at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park, where Florida manatees drift past with schools of fish around them. The park looks after manatees that cannot survive on their own, so one is often close by; if the frame looks empty, watch the edges for a few minutes.
Best time: Daylight, about 8 AM–6 PM Eastern, when sun lights the water
Monterey, CA
Live video
Rescued southern sea otters that cannot return to the wild, filmed in the aquarium’s exhibit. They groom, wrestle, nap in a raft and crack shellfish on their bellies, and they are at their busiest around feeding times.
Best time: Aquarium daytime hours, roughly 10 AM–5 PM Pacific
Big Island, Hawaii
Live video
USGS’s V1 camera looks into Halemaʻumaʻu, the crater where Kīlauea’s recent eruptive episodes have sent lava fountains hundreds of feet high. Between episodes the crater can be quiet for days; when one is under way, this is the closest live view there is.
Best time: After dark in Hawaiʻi, 7 PM–5 AM HST, while an episode is erupting
Antigua, Guatemala
Live video
Fuego is one of the most consistently active volcanoes on Earth, with small explosions often only minutes apart. By day you see the ash puffs; at night the same bursts throw glowing rock down the cone.
Best time: Clear mornings and after dark, Guatemala time; November to April is the dry, clearer season
Banzai Pipeline, North Shore, Oahu, HI
Live video
Pipeline breaks over a shallow reef just off the sand, which is why its waves are so hollow and so dangerous. The winter north swells that start arriving in late October turn this camera from a quiet beach into the best surf show anywhere.
Best time: Mornings, 7–11 AM HST, before the trade winds; November to February for the big swells
Ka'anapali Beach, Maui, HI
Live video
A west-facing stretch of Kāʻanapali with Lānaʻi and Molokaʻi across the channel. It is a sunset camera first, and in winter the channel is full of humpback whales; watch for blows and breaches beyond the swimmers.
Best time: The hour before sunset, about 5–6:30 PM HST; December to April for whales
Venice Beach, CA
Live video
Los Angeles at its most Los Angeles: the Venice boardwalk with its skaters, cyclists and street performers, and the Pacific behind them. It is a people-watching camera more than a surf one, and weekends are busiest.
Best time: Late morning to sunset, Pacific time, weekends especially
Lewers Street, Waikiki, Honolulu, HI
Live videoOur cameraNot live at last check
Our own camera, installed and run by Port of Cams on Lewers Street in the middle of Waikiki. It streams straight from our server, not through YouTube, so it is the one camera on this page we can vouch for end to end.
Best time: Evening, 6–11 PM HST, when the street fills up
French Quarter, New Orleans, LA
Live video
EarthCam’s view down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. In the morning it is delivery trucks and street cleaners; after dark it is balconies, music and crowds, and on Friday and Saturday nights it does not empty until the small hours.
Best time: 9 PM–2 AM Central, Friday and Saturday
Grand Canal, Venice, Italy
Live video
Gondolas, water buses and delivery boats sharing the Grand Canal, seen from a restaurant terrace. It is the busiest working street in Venice, and the palazzi opposite change colour through the day.
Best time: Morning, 8–11 AM Italian time, and the blue hour after sunset
Sydney, Australia
Live video
Both of Sydney’s landmarks in one frame, with ferries cutting across the harbour between them. It is morning in Sydney when it is evening in the Americas, so it is a good camera to open at the end of an American day.
Best time: Sunrise and dusk, Sydney time; the New Year’s Eve fireworks
Kawaguchiko, Yamanashi, Japan
Live video
Fuji over Lake Kawaguchi, from the panorama ropeway above the lake. The mountain hides in cloud for much of the year, so a clear view is the reward; the first snow usually caps the summit in October.
Best time: Early morning, 6–9 AM Japan time, November to February for the clearest air
Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada
Live video
The falls from the Canadian side, with the mist cloud rising out of the gorge. On sunny afternoons a rainbow often sits in the spray, and after dark the falls are lit in colour every night.
Best time: Sunny afternoons for rainbows; the nightly illumination after dark, Eastern time
Jackson Hole, WY
Live video
The Tetons rise straight out of the valley floor with no foothills in the way, and they face east, so the first sun lights them pink before it reaches the valley. Watch the light rather than the foreground: the range changes colour from dawn to dusk.
Best time: Sunrise, Mountain time, for the alpenglow
Fairbanks, AK
Live video
Fairbanks sits under the auroral oval, so even a quiet night can put green across this camera’s sky. The camera streams continuous video, not stills, so on an active night you can watch the curtains move in real time.
Best time: 10 PM–2 AM Alaska time, late August to mid-April
Kilpisjärvi, Enontekiö, Finland
Live video
Kilpisjärvi is at 69°N on the Finnish–Norwegian border, far from any town lights, and this camera looks north over the fells. Its dark season is long: from October the nights run to fourteen hours and more, and by December the sun barely clears the horizon.
Best time: 9 PM–1 AM Finnish time, September to March
Rotsund, Lyngen fjord, Northern Norway
Live video
A camera on the shore of Lyngen fjord, northeast of Tromsø, at almost 70°N. When the aurora is strong and the water is calm, the fjord can reflect it, which no inland camera can show you.
Best time: 8 PM–1 AM Norwegian time, September to March
Every camera here is one we watch ourselves, and each had to earn its place in its own way: Brooks Falls and the Churchill polar bears because nothing else shows wild animals that close; Kīlauea and Fuego because they are erupting volcanoes you can watch from a desk; the aurora cameras because they sit far enough north for a quiet night to still put green in the sky. We left out cameras that only show a still image and near-duplicates: one good Fuji camera beats three similar ones.
We also checked that every one of them was streaming live, embeddable and not reported offline by our own camera-health checker on the day we picked it. That is a snapshot, not a promise: live cameras are run by parks, lodges, aquariums, hotels and volunteers, and any of them can go dark for a storm, a season or a broken cable. When the page is rebuilt it checks each stream again, and a camera that fails is marked here and left out of the featured player.
Your browser works out where the sun is at each camera, using the camera’s coordinates and the time, with no server involved. Scenery and wildlife want daylight, and the hour around sunrise and sunset ranks just behind full daylight because that is when the light is best. Aurora cameras want a sky darker than nautical twilight. City streets, Niagara’s illuminated falls and the volcanoes are watchable all day but best after dusk. Ties keep the order you see in the sections below.
Camera feeds belong to their operators, named on each camera page. Sun positions are computed in your browser.
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