Where is Santa Claus right now? You can follow the route here

Santa tracker - Where is Santa Claus right now? You can follow the route here

It's early morning on Christmas Eve. Santa Claus is making the final preparations before setting off from Santa's village at the North Pole. At 11 a.m. on the dot, the man in the red robe sets off with his reindeer on his round-the-world tour to give presents to young and old. At least that's how Google presents it in its "Santa Tracker", where you can watch Santa Claus on his journey around the world(click here for Google's Santa Tracker). In his red sleigh, Santa races across the Google map and heads for his destinations. To find out more about Santa's next destination, Google has added a local guide to the destinations, where you can get information and view pictures if you are interested. There are also games and puzzles for the whole family.

Santa tracker: The idea has been around for over 60 years

However, the idea of offering Santa's journey for tracking is not new. The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been offering its own Santa Tracker since Christmas 1955. In those days, when there was no internet, NORAD always provided the current location of Santa Claus on its own initiative. Since 1981, there has also been a hotline on which children can call and the current location is transmitted. US President Joe Biden may well be on the line. For years, it has been a tradition in the White House for the incumbent US President to answer calls from children. However, there are also mishaps. Last year, for example, Biden was insulted on the phone by Trump supporters, while former US President Trump explained to a child on the phone that Santa Claus does not exist.

The program is very popular: every year, the volunteers receive over 100,000 calls and 12,000 emails, all of which are answered. According to a CNN report , each volunteer answers around 40 calls every hour. NORAD now also has its own website where you can follow Santa's journey.(Click here for the NORAD tracker) It not only shows the route, but also the number of presents he is currently delivering, just like Google. This year, the space agency's tracker is starting a little earlier than Google's. In previous years, the starting signal was only given at 8 p.m. German time, but since 2022 Santa has been able to glide through the air in his sleigh at 10 a.m. NORAD also offers a German-language version of the homepage. Similar to Google, the homepage also features games and information about NORAD's work in addition to the tracker. A new feature is that you can also watch Santa's journey on your cell phone. NORAD has published its own app for both Android and Apple, which is also available in German and includes mini-games as well as the tracker.

Santa has already been on the move since early morning with Flight Radar. His route takes him to the time zones where Christmas Eve is already drawing to a close. His route will also take him to Germany via New Zealand and Australia in the course of the day(click here for the tracker at Flight Radar 24). If you go directly to the Flight Radar homepage, you can simply enter SANTA, HOHOHO or R3DNO53 to locate the sleigh. A special gimmick: if you create an account, you can also track Santa's flight in 3D. And even if the trackers can't agree on a common start time, they all have one thing in common: Santa and his nine reindeer start their journey around the globe at the North Pole.