What Is a Wind Phone? US Locations and How to Make One

A wind phone is an old telephone, usually a rotary, in a booth or a wooden box, in a garden or a park or a cemetery. It isn't wired to anything. You pick up the handset, dial a number you still know by heart, and say what you'd say if they could hear you. This page is about where that idea came from, where you can find a wind phone in the US, how people build one, and what they say into it.

What is a wind phone?

A disconnected phone in a quiet place, put there on purpose for people who've lost someone. There's no line and no one on the other end. The idea is that your words go out on the wind.

Most of them look alike: a vintage phone, a small shelter to keep the rain off, a bench, a sign, often a notebook where people leave a line. Nearly all of them were put there by one person, or one family, after a loss of their own.

Where did the wind phone come from?

The first one is in Ōtsuchi, a fishing town on the northeast coast of Japan. A garden designer named Itaru Sasaki built it in his garden on a hill above the sea in late 2010, after he lost a cousin. He has said he wanted a place to keep talking to him, and that since his thoughts couldn't travel down an ordinary phone line, he wanted them carried on the wind. He called it kaze no denwa, the phone of the wind.

In March 2011 the earthquake and tsunami hit that coast. More than 15,000 people were lost across the region; about 1,400 of them were from Ōtsuchi alone. Sasaki opened his garden to anyone who needed it. People came from the town, then from across Japan, to pick up the receiver and speak to a husband, a daughter, a parent who had been there one morning and not the next. By 2017 the Honolulu Star-Advertiser put the count at 25,000 visitors; it's now past 30,000. One family wrote in the notebook to a son who was still missing, asking him to come home.

The wind phone was never about believing anyone picks up. Sasaki has said the line isn't connected, but people feel the person they lost is listening. That turned out to be enough.

Why are there so many wind phones in the US now?

Because a few people built one, local news covered it, and someone who saw the story built another. The first documented one in the US went up in Oakland, California in 2017 for a friend lost in the Ghost Ship fire; it's no longer there. The ones after it mostly came from hospices, Girl Scout troops, cemeteries, churches, and parents.

Two sites keep track. Amy Dawson built mywindphone.com after losing her daughter Emily; when we checked it listed 464 public wind phones in the US, with a map you can filter by state. A smaller directory, windphone.org, lists only the ones it has verified and says plainly that its list "is not complete and it never will be," because many are built quietly by families. Nobody knows the exact number.

Where can I find a wind phone near me?

Below are public wind phones in the US we could confirm against a news story, the installing organization, or one of the two directories. It isn't the whole list; for the full map, use mywindphone.com. Check the hours before you drive: some are inside a hospice or funeral home. Each entry links to where we found it.

Arizona — Phoenix: New Vision Center for Spiritual Living, in the meditation garden, North Phoenix (FOX 10). Wickenburg: Hassayampa River Preserve (windphone.org). Tucson: Tu Nidito (windphone.org).
California — Eureka: Hospice of Humboldt (windphone.org). The mywindphone map also lists Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Altadena, Idyllwild, Crestline, Goleta, Marina and Agoura Hills (mywindphone.com).
Colorado — Littleton: Columbine United Church (CPR). Cañon City: St. Thomas More Hospital (CPR). Silverton: Silverton Cemetery (CPR). Colorado Springs: Nancy Lewis Park, 2615 N. Logan Ave., placed by Pikes Peak Hospice (Pikes Peak Hospice).
Connecticut — Ridgefield: outside Ridgebury Congregational Church (WBUR).
Florida — Safety Harbor: Folly Farm Nature Preserve, a white lattice booth built by artist Chris Dotson in 2021 (Tampa Bay Times).
Georgia — Atlanta: the Atlanta Wind Phone, placed by the nonprofit Grief House, first at Woodruff Park and moving in spring 2026 to Historic Oakland Cemetery (CBS Atlanta, Oakland Cemetery).
Idaho — Boise: near the Veterans Trailhead in the Boise Foothills, off N. Dry Creek Cemetery Road (KIVI).
Illinois — Evanston: Canal Shores Golf Course, by the 11th hole (Princeton Alumni Weekly).
Iowa — Evansdale: Angels Park, built by a Girl Scout troop (KWWL).
Maryland — Gaithersburg: Kentlands, placed by the Little Wind Phone Project with the city (City of Gaithersburg). Silver Spring: Reflection Park (The Baltimore Banner).
Massachusetts — Somerset: Elm Street Acres trailhead, the Blue Raider Wind Phone, a project of a high-school ceramics class (mywindphone.com). Franklin: Franklin Sculpture Park on Panther Way (Franklin Observer).
Michigan — Grand Rapids: Oak Grove Cemetery, a black rotary on a bench (WGRD). Kent City: Howard Christensen Nature Center, off a side trail marked with blue flags (mywindphone.com). Saginaw: Imerman Memorial Park, Pavilion 4 (WNEM). Michigan has more than twenty in all.
Minnesota — West St. Paul: on Bernard Street, built by Jennifer Swenson (FOX 9). Chanhassen: Grief Club of Minnesota (FOX 9).
New Jersey — Williamstown: the grounds of Cornerstone Church, placed by the hospice Angelic Health (CBS Philadelphia). Princeton: the garden behind Maclean House on the university campus (Princeton Alumni Weekly).
New Mexico — Taos: Rio Fernando Park (Taos News).
New York — New Hartford: Hospice & Palliative Care, 4277 Middle Settlement Road, in a gazebo by the entrance (Rome Sentinel). Islip: Gabriel's Giving Tree Memorial and Serenity Garden; Oneonta: Oneonta Connection (windphone.org).
North Carolina — Asheville: Riverside Cemetery, 53 Birch St., built by Girl Scout Troop 10218 (mywindphone.com).
Ohio — Hartville: Quail Hollow Park, Stark County (Scripps News). Cincinnati: Heritage Acres Memorial Sanctuary (Psychology Today).
Oregon — Jacksonville: Jacksonville Cemetery, built by an 82-year-old retired contractor (KOBI). Portland: Skyline Memorial Gardens, 4101 NW Skyline Blvd, inside the gates on the upper corner of the Garden of Apostles (mywindphone.com).
Pennsylvania — Dallas: the Back Mountain Trail, Rimple Loop section, next to a memorial bench (Times Leader).
Rhode Island — Portsmouth: the Goosefield Wind Phone, on a hilltop along an Aquidneck Land Trust trail (mywindphone.com).
South Carolina — Greenville: Conestee (windphone.org).
Tennessee — Nashville: 1425 Rosebank Avenue, East Nashville (NewsChannel 5).
Texas — Arlington: Bowman Springs Park (Texas Standard).
Vermont — Middlebury: on a trail around town, placed by the Wilhelm family (WCAX). Hyde Park: Lanpher Memorial Library (windphone.org).
Virginia — Hospice of the Piedmont keeps five: Darden Towe Park, Pen Park and the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont in Charlottesville; C.M. Crockett Park in Fauquier County; Rappahannock County Park (Hospice of the Piedmont).
Washington — Olympia: Squaxin Park, formerly Priest Point Park (KUOW). Burien: Seahurst Park, on a trail at the north end (B-Town Blog). Federal Way: Dumas Bay (Federal Way Mirror).
Wisconsin — Brookfield: Wisconsin Memorial Park, indoors in the Family Reception Center, business hours Monday to Saturday (WISN).
Wyoming — Gillette: Memorial Park downtown, the state's first (Cowboy State Daily).

If yours isn't here, tell mywindphone.com so people can find it.

Is there a wind phone in Las Vegas, or anywhere in Nevada?

Not one we could confirm. We checked both directories and the local news, and we couldn't find a public wind phone in Las Vegas, Henderson, Reno or anywhere else in the state. The nearest ones we know of are in Arizona: Kingman and Lake Havasu City both have one on the mywindphone map.

We live here. If you know of one, or you've built one in your yard and would open it to people, tell mywindphone.com so people can find it.

How do you make a wind phone?

People who've built one say the same few things, and mywindphone.com has a how-to page with letter templates for asking a city.

The phone. An old rotary, from a thrift store or online. The slow dial gives you a moment before you speak. A push-button phone works too. It isn't connected to anything, and most people prefer that.

The shelter. Anything that keeps rain off the handset: an open-fronted wooden box on a post, a small gazebo, a repurposed booth. In Somerset, Massachusetts theirs was built from fallen branches so it would disappear into the trees. In Brookfield, Wisconsin the booth came out of someone's basement.

The place. Quiet, a little off the main path, with a bench and no audience. Builders pick a side trail on purpose, for privacy and to discourage vandalism. A hilltop that catches the wind is common.

The sign. A few plain lines about what it is and that anyone may use it. Many add a notebook and pen in a waterproof box.

Permission. On public land, ask the parks department or the town; most of the ones above went in that way, often with a hospice or a Scout troop behind the request. On your own land, think about hazards and keep it maintained. Then tell mywindphone.com so people can find it.

What do people say into a wind phone?

Mostly ordinary things. In Middlebury, Vermont, a mother who lost her son told the local station she mostly fills him in on his brothers and the day-to-day. In Arlington, Texas, the woman who built the phone said her early calls were questions: where have you gone, why did you do this. Over time they became "Here's what happened today," and "I so thought of you when I did this." In Ridgefield, Connecticut a visitor said simply, "Hey mama, I miss you. I know you're around."

People say the things that didn't get said. They apologize. They report the news: a grandchild, a job, a diagnosis. In Kent City, Michigan, the woman who dedicated the phone to her parents dials the number they had for fifty years before she talks. Many say they didn't expect anything and were surprised by how much came out once the receiver was at their ear. The sign on the Grand Rapids phone reads: the wind will take your words to where they need to be.

Is "Risa and the Wind Phone" on Netflix about the real wind phone?

Not directly. Risa and the Wind Phone is a 2025 Argentine film directed by Juan Cabral, with Cazzu, Diego Peretti and Joaquín Furriel, about a ten-year-old girl in Ushuaia who finds a telephone booth that lets her reach people who have passed. It had a theatrical run in Argentina and came to Netflix on June 3, 2026, which is why so many people are searching the phrase now. It's a fable; the booth in the film does something the real ones don't claim to.

For the real story, there's a 2020 Japanese drama, Voices in the Wind, and Laura Imai Messina's 2020 novel The Phone Box at the Edge of the World, both built around Ōtsuchi.

When you want the phone to answer

A wind phone never rings back, and for many people the silence is the point. Some hang up wishing they could hear one word in return, in the voice they were talking to.

That is a different thing, and it's the thing we make: a recreation of their voice, made from recordings you already have, that you can call and talk with. It might start from an old voicemail, an audio recording from a family gathering, or a video on your phone. It isn't them, and we're plain about that. Hear their voice first, free; the free call shows you whether those recordings are enough.

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