Travel is a subjective experience. I’ve often visited destinations that have been hyped up by friends or family, and found them underwhelming. But on the flip side, I’ve sometimes found random spots where I instantly feel at home, despite being halfway across the world and having no real connection to the place. 

If astrologers are to be believed, there might be a reason different places can evoke such strong feelings from us, and it’s to do with the position of the planets when we were born. I spoke to Rebecca Lovatt, the astrologer behind The Humble Warrior, who practices astrocartology: a lesser-known type of astrology that’s growing in popularity among those who are seeking advice on where to travel or relocate. 

I sent my date and time of birth to Rebecca ahead of meeting her, and she presented me with a map of the world, including many coloured lines. She joked: “ It’s one of those things that I think when you first open it, it looks quite overwhelming. It’s a little bit like ‘oh my gosh, it’s the world. There are so many lines, there are so many colours, there are so many kinds of places that stick out.’

“But once you kind of go through it, it’s actually quite easy for people to read it themselves, which is what’s quite nice about it. It’s not as scary as it first looks.”

Rebecca’s enthusiasm for astrocartography is contagious, and I’m soon peering at the map and asking a million questions about the meanings behind each line. She’s been practising astrology for five years, and astrocartography for three, and she cheerily dives into my chart and starts telling me some of the meanings.

It’s important to capture your time of birth for this kind of reading, Rebecca explains, as it can change the way your chart looks. “For astrocartography specifically, the time of day does matter quite strongly. It matters less for your outer planets or your slow-moving planets. So, for example, Saturn is a slow-moving planet, Pluto is a really slow-moving planet; they don’t move that much based on time. 

“But planets like the sun, the moon, Venus, they move quite a lot even within a few minutes.”

She also explains that this type of reading can explain a lot about your relationships with people from different locations too: “It’s really interesting to use it in a way that is not just about travel, but about what do these certain people that I meet from these places trigger within me, or what do they remind me of or, you know how how do I interact with them based on these kind of energetic lines.

“If you like it becomes almost like a psychological tool based on that.”

Zooming in on the UK, one of the first things she sees is a big Saturn line that runs through London and the South-East, close to both my home and workplace. According to Rebecca, this could cause some challenges: “Saturn represents rules and restrictions and things feeling a little bit kind of claustrophobic or like I’m being limited in some way.

“But what it usually teaches us about is patience. Saturn is an absolute master of discipline. So whenever we’re on a Saturn line, that is absolutely what we’re being asked to learn.” 

“It’s all about hard work and determination and keep showing up and keep doing the grind”, which is good news for my editor, but maybe not the most relaxing place for me to live. 

One of my UK lines that sticks out is Venus, Rebecca says. It covers the east coast, running through Norfolk and Suffolk. She explains: “What Venus represents when we think about travel is our ability to rest, our ability to receive. So, whenever people go to a Venus line, it often tends to be the things that they see with their eyes are more beautiful, the way that their body really speaks to rest and relaxation and receiving and being nourished and being cared for.”

It sounds great, and definitely makes me want to start looking on Rightmove for houses in Norfolk, although I’ll probably just stick to some weekend breaks for now. But not everyone should chase the same lines, as Rebecca explains: “Everyone’s kind of got a best line that they’re going to just relate to more easily. Your best line is that Venus line wherever it runs through because of its relationship to your rising sign, which is Libra, which is ruled by Venus.”

My Venus line also runs through Paris, Toulouse, and Barcelona, the latter being a city that’s among my favourites. It also runs through the Balearic Islands, and while I’ve visited Majorca and Menorca, feeling very much at home, the line actually goes through Ibiza, which isn’t a holiday destination I’d usually consider. But Rebecca’s advice certainly makes me want to add it to my holiday shortlist. 

Across the world, another strong Venus line is in the southwest USA, running close to Las Vegas where I got married, which feels like such an eerie coincidence.

I notice that some of my lines intersect in certain places and ask whether that’s significant. Rebecca tells me that it’s something to look out for: “Obviously 70% of the world is water. So, usually they intersect over water, but when you get them intersecting over land masses, you get a little bit more of a sense of two energies coming together.

Apparently, my Venus and Pluto lines cross over Mexico. Rebecca says: “Pluto is all about transformation and power and Venus is all about kind of rest and relaxation and love and beauty. So it’s a powerful place for the Venus aspect to come alive or it can mean that  power dynamics perhaps are at play within relationships based on the other way around.”

I ask whether there are any places on my chart I should avoid, and while Rebecca doesn’t outright tell people not to travel to certain places, she can advise them on how to prepare. She recommends avoiding Pluto and Chiron lines for a more relaxing break.“Pluto is the line of power and transformation. Is that somewhere I would want to go on holiday? Somewhere that is kind of linked to this life and death aspect and also linked to power?”

She adds: “Chiron’s our Achilles heel. It’s our kind of weakness, our weak spot, but it’s also really powerful for things like shadow healing or looking at aspects of ourselves that we would normally keep hidden from other people. So, it’s powerful for things like retreats, but not so powerful for things like relaxing on a beach.”

Rebecca explains if you’ve been to a certain destination and found it a negative experience, then your Uranus line could be to blame. “The Uranus line can be quite a shocking or a surprising line, or a line that asks us to completely step out of our comfort zone.

“Uranus is meant to be the planet of kind of chaos and shaking up the norm. So getting us to do things that we wouldn’t normally do and disrupting us in some way. So when people have been to the Uranus line, often what they will report, unless Uranus sits really strongly in their chart, is that things didn’t go to plan. 

“Everything was up in the air. We had a plan, and nothing was stuck to it; there’s just kind of chaos around the Uranus line. which is usually the one that causes people the most problems, especially if they’re control freaks.”

I ask Rebecca whether any of her previous clients have made life choices based on their reading. She said: “I have – I’ve got quite a few people who have moved based on the things that we’ve that we’ve discussed. They very often will just come back with feedback around how it was just really helpful to process all of those things in one place and and work through those things.”

She adds: “I think a lot of people just want that ability to discuss options with a neutral third party as well that doesn’t have any invested interest in the move.  I’ve had people move to Australia, people move to Mexico, people move from America, into different parts of the UK. We’ve explored all sorts.”

One client she worked with decided to buy a house in the south of France, despite it being on the Uranus line. And Rebecca says it was chaotic: “It ran straight through the Uranus line and nothing went to plan. Absolutely nothing.

“They ended up buying the house in the end, but it took so much longer. There was so much bureaucracy, there was just every single kind of obstacle and thing that they would never have planned for just popped out of the woodwork and it kind of taught them to let go of sorts.”

So, what happens if you have a couple looking to relocate, as obviously their charts could be quite different? Rebecca says: “Couples are always really interesting to do. I’ve done quite a few of those as well, and we usually kind of focus around the strongest lines for each person and then where they either intersect or where they come together strongest in terms of opportunities.

“But as I say a lot of the time  I also do reconnect it back to people’s intuition. So how do they feel about it? What’s their gut response to it? What are the voices in their head saying about it? So that it’s not just a matter of relying heavily on the map and disconnecting it from reality. There’s got to be those two parts that come together.”

So, would I pick a holiday destination based on Rebecca’s reading? I’ll definitely be consulting my astrocartography map next time I travel, and it seems like a useful tool to help mentally prepare for a new destination. And if I ever decide to become an expat, it’s certainly something I’d want to consult before making a big life choice. Especially if it helped me avoid French bureaucracy. 

You can book an astrocartography reading on Rebecca’s website. 

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