Sea distance and route
The distance between two ports along the lanes ships actually sail, learned from AIS position history. It is not a straight line and not a chart. Choose two ports and a speed.
Information only — not for navigation. Never use these results to plan or conduct a passage.
Or try: Houston → New Orleans · New York → Norfolk · Los Angeles → Oakland · Baltimore → Philadelphia · Seattle → Tacoma
Coverage
Lanes shown here come only from sources whose licence lets us publish results derived from them: AISstream.io global terrestrial AIS, NOAA Marine Cadastre historical AIS. The current graph has 54,275 lane cells and 78,276 links, built Sep 23, 2026.
Lanes learned from our other AIS feeds are held back until those feeds' display rights are confirmed, so large parts of the world have no route here yet.
AIS data: AISstream.io
Batch runs
Distances for a whole list of voyages?
Pro runs this tool for every row of a CSV or a watchlist, up to 500 rows at a time, in the Voydar Terminal, and downloads the answers as CSV. Single runs here stay free. Try Pro free for 14 days, once, no card needed.
How this works
- We divide the sea into cells of about 3 nautical miles and keep every cell that moving cargo ships, tankers and passenger ships crossed on at least two different ship-days.
- Two cells are linked when the same ship moved from one to the other between consecutive position reports (at most 6 nm and 20 minutes apart). Each cell is placed at the average position of the ships in it, so the network follows the lanes rather than a grid.
- Your ports join the network at the nearest lane cells (within 20 nm), and the shortest path along the links gives the distance.
- Time at sea is distance divided by speed. It leaves out waiting at anchor, pilotage, canal transits and port time.
The route shows where ships have sailed. It knows nothing about charted depths, traffic separation schemes, restricted areas, weather, ice or your ship's draught.