Travel with Intention through
Astrocartography
June 10, 2026
by Wen-You Cai
Ever wonder how you can be in a place surrounded by others, and have a vastly different experience from them? Since Jennifer Vesta introduced me to astrocartography, I’ve been more conscious of how I experience certain places. It’s a good concept for those interested in astrology to be considerate of how to travel in alignment with the universe, in hopes of opportunity and inspiration. Jennifer Vesta is a rational psychic who lays the foundation for this fascinating topic that can become a starting point for many who seek a shift in energy.
Jennifer has new mini courses on how to read your own Astrocartography! Learn more at jennifervesta.com and @jennifer.vesta.
Wen-You Cai: What was it about the subject of astrology and astrocartography that drew you in?
Jennifer Vesta: Well, I think everyone wants to learn more about themselves, right? Especially the minute you read something unexpected that really strikes a chord. I got that bug early on, but I didn’t know anything about this realm and I was highly skeptical. I would say the gateway book for me that really marked a before and after was The Secret Language of Relationships by Gary Goldschneider, which draws from astrology, numerology, and tarot. I came upon that book in 2010 and that was my first initiation into this world.
Astrocartography is a branch of astrology, basically the “astrology of place,” or a “map of possibilities.” It tells you how you’ll feel and experience different places in the world. You can also call it AstroMapping. It immediately clicked for me when I looked into my charts, because certain places really cast a spell on me. Some places feel like everything is flowing and everyone’s attracted to you, whereas with others it’s like nothing’s going right.
Do you remember the first time you got an astrocartography reading?
My first one was actually a solar return reading. You can travel specifically on your birthday to set the tone of your upcoming year. So in that reading, you’re choosing the best location to call in what you want that year, like prioritizing career, love, finances, etc. After that, I got all sorts of astrology readings done and started learning more myself. I was self-taught at the beginning and once I got “serious” about it, I started paying for much more intensive programs. This field is more like an apprenticeship system, there aren’t really formal institutions for it. You just have to search and find a teacher whose vibe feels good to you. There’s different “schools of astrology” too, in terms of disciplines (evolutionary astrology and hellenistic are the main two systems I practice) although I’ve kind of created my own blend based on what’s worked best for me over time.
There’s also a psychic element to your work. As a psychic, when you meet another psychic, can you sense that about each other?
It’s funny—the first psychic I ever went to in New York immediately told me, “You’re intuitive. You’re meant to be doing this.” And I was really resistant to that, I didn’t want to hear it because I was still pretty closeted around it. And from that resistant place, I said, “You know, I actually have never been to a psychic before.” And she was like, “That makes sense. Healers don’t need other healers.” That really landed for me, because that was the real reason I had never gone to psychics before–not so much that I didn’t believe them (although I didn’t), but more from a place of, why do I need them? I already have my own compass. I also didn’t know what to call what I wanted to do because it doesn’t really fit into a box. She told me, “It doesn’t matter what you call yourself because other people will name you for you. The reason you’re so hung up on the name is because you are embarrassed you might be called a ‘psychic.’” To which I was like, yeah no shit, who wouldn’t be!
You chose the name Vesta for yourself. What is its significance?
Astrologically, Vesta is an asteroid who represents our sacred calling. Her position in our chart shows where we are uniquely focused, devoted, and suited to provide service. She’s also significantly placed in my chart, amplified in Virgo in the 12th house of hidden realms.
Historically, Vesta is a Roman goddess who represents the home and hearth. Which is to say, she represents our sacred fire. The main throughline with all my clients is connecting to their true self, stepping into that eternal flame in the core of their being and staying there. I know what it feels like to have that flame almost snuffed out during the course of one’s life, so symbolically, Vesta deeply resonates with me. She keeps our inner flame alive no matter how treacherous the quest.
On a separate note, that same first psychic I saw was the one who told me not to use my last name because, in her words, “this is a dangerous business.” Conveniently, I wasn’t planning to because coming out as a psychic was beyond embarrassing to me at the time. I actually called it “Intuitive Counsel” at first before having the guts to use the word “psychic.” I’ve always had to step into the most humiliating thing to neutralize it and shatter my ego around it. If a word still carries a charge then it still has power over me.
What does someone need to know to understand their astrocartography map?
I would say the best lines to be on are Sun, Venus, and Jupiter– they just feel great. You feel comfortable in your skin, inexplicably lucky and magnetic; everything comes to you. The ones you want to watch out for are the Mars, Saturn, and Pluto lines–those are more likely to bring friction, obstacles, and possibly extreme upheaval depending on how they’re placed.
Of course, it’s more nuanced than that and you want to look at your relocation chart as a whole. For instance, Dubai is on a Pluto line for me but there are other amazing elements that blend with it and make the overall experience more powerful and transformative, which is another expression of Pluto. There’s a light and shadow to every planet and it’s also influenced by the relationships it forms with other planets.
For one client of mine, Singapore was a convergence of her Mars, Saturn, and Pluto lines and she literally almost died there—all sorts of crazy shit happened, like getting an autoimmune disease. Luckily she’s no longer based there, but I had never seen that convergence of so many harsh energies in one place.
Jennifer Vesta’s personal astrocartography map
What has your experience been on some of the more challenging lines in your own chart?
Los Angeles was tricky for me, that one’s on my moon line. It’s not necessarily negative but can lead to delusion and mass confusion, which was definitely my experience during that phase of my life. The effects intensify over time, so it also depends on how long you’re staying.
Dubai is technically on a Pluto line for me, putting Pluto in my fourth house. The relocation chart tells you which houses all the planets are in, which correspond to different arenas of your life. The fourth house is the private realm; it represents home, belonging, and ancestry. Dubai felt immediately familiar to me; it feels like the most spiritual land I’ve ever been on, which is so unexpected for most people to hear, especially in the West. I love hearing the call to prayer. That kind of desert landscape feels deeply ancestral and charged for me. Of course, in my birth chart, I have a natally strong Pluto placement so I’m also more tolerant of Plutonian energies. I can handle intensity and transformation more than others. If anything, I’m drawn to it.
So even if a place on your map might not look great by standard practice, there’s still a lot of nuance that you should consider to see how it feels for you, or how it treats you.
Yeah, you want to look at the full relocation chart and also take into account your individual birth chart, who you are as a person. That’s why different people have different experiences of the same city, from an astrological perspective. For me, New York is super intense and completely fries my system when I stay too long. But for you, it’s a more grounded, homebody experience.
How long do you have to be in a place to feel its energy?
I like to think of it as a bathtub filled with colored water, let’s say purple water. The longer you’re in the tub, the more purple your skin gets. I was in Dubai for three days recently and it was great, but I was also a little more cautious because last time, I was there for a month and I started having more intense experiences. I sprained my ankle falling off a horse, which obviously derailed a bunch of things. Going back to Pluto being in my fourth house for Dubai, this is the house of foundations. Your feet and ankles are part of your foundation. So I stayed a bit too long in that tub.
How far do you have to move in order to change your placements?
If you’re moving North and South, it’s not that big of a difference—like between Portland and LA, for example. Most of the planets would still be in the same houses. Moving East and West makes a much bigger difference, like between LA and New Orleans. If you’re moving along both axes, LA to NY, then it adds up cumulatively. If you want to shift the chart enough to make a difference you’ll feel, try to move horizontally.
The map is just your starting point though. It gives you a surface-level read because it’s only telling you if a planet’s hitting your AC, DC, MC or IC (the four pillars of the chart where you’d feel things most). So you can look at the map just to get that high-level view, but the next step would be to pull up the relocation chart to get the full read.
L-R: In the desert in Dubai, full moon in Bali
Does astrocartography change in your lifetime?
No, your astrocartography and birth chart are set for this lifetime. Your birth chart is like a snapshot of the sky, where all the planets were the moment you were born. Astrocartography is basically your birth chart overlaid onto the world map. It’s specific and fixed to you.
Your solar return chart, however, does change every year. A solar return is when the sun returns to its exact placement from when you were born, though it usually doesn’t match up exactly with your Gregorian calendar birthday. This chart is drawn from the current transits, i.e. where all the planets are in the sky, which is always changing. So you will never have the same solar return chart twice, even if you spend every birthday in the same place. The fun thing is, you can move the planets to advantageous positions in your chart by shifting your physical location on your solar return, and that sets the tone for the entire year until your next birthday. So it does play with geographical location the way astrocartography does. That’s why a lot of people, myself included, travel every year on their birthday to a specific location to “cast” or set this chart.
I also want to add, you don’t necessarily have to travel, life has a way of putting us in the best place for what we need. I’ve had clients who were already in the best city for their purposes, which has also been the case for me in the past. I have another client who has a lot of trust and flow in his life, and he was in the middle of moving homes on his birthday and was randomly passing through Iowa in a U-Haul at the moment of his solar return (SR). We retroactively pulled up his SR chart and the ruler of his ascendant was not only in the first house but on the ascendant, which, in Vedic, is called “the placement of kings.” That was so incredible and serendipitous to see, because he wasn’t planning his solar return at all and it just fell into place. And then we went through the chart retrospectively to see what the year would bring and it was beautiful. To me, the solar return chart is really a ceremonial framework for getting clear on your deepest desires for the year ahead.
Is the solar return the only thing that can affect your chart for an upcoming year? Are there other days of the year that can change the mood or vibe?
Every planet has a return, which is when it returns to where it was at the moment of your birth. So there’s also a lunar return, which happens monthly, when the transiting moon is on your natal moon. This chart gives you a forecast of your emotional landscape for that month, which focuses on your body, inner world, and home and family dynamics. The moon is how we nurture ourselves and take care of ourselves, how we feel good.
If someone’s going to make a serious move to another city, whether it’s for a new job or a residency program, should they consult a psychic before they go? Or just feel it out for themselves?
Either works. I did not consult anyone before Mumbai turned into my current base outside LA, but I also wasn’t seriously experimenting with astrocartography yet. I was not “out” as a psychic either. Circumstances in my life just led me here and it all unfolded on its own. I had vaguely known that Mumbai was a power zone for me— it’s on my Jupiter and Sun line with Jupiter at its zenith—but I had no intention of coming here, so that factoid kind of dropped out of my head. I think your life will literally conspire to bring you to the correct places regardless of how you consciously perceive it. I ended up here and it was like everything was on fire the minute I landed. The energy was just amazing, it felt like a huge voltage shooting through my body.
The more aligned you are, the more you’ll be drawn to the right places for you. There’s a Human Design (a newer modality comprised of Astrology, Kaballah, the I-Ching, and the Hindu-Brahmin chakra system. It provides an energetic blueprint of who you came here to be) component to that, how to make correct decisions for your energy type, but you don’t need to know Human Design to act in alignment with your inner self. It’s more about removing distractions. Your life will just unfold organically if you can get out of your own way.
That makes me think of Olympic athletes–I suppose where you’re training is probably important to reach new levels of your skills.
Oh completely. Another personal example: I could have never become a psychic if I did not come to Mumbai. I was so closeted around it in the States even though people are very open to it in New York and LA, where I primarily was. Although generally, in the West, it’s like you’re admitting mild stupidity by expressing interest in the unseen. I personally needed to come to a place that felt like a totally different planet for me to bust through all my mental constructs and internalized prejudices around this stuff. And for me, that was Mumbai. I had to come here to find the right circumstances to allow that transformation to unfold. People here talk about astrology like it’s the weather, it’s completely normalized. And there are so many wacky similarities here with the film industry that it felt like this strange, funhouse mirror version of LA, where I had just come from, which lent some amount of continuity so that my brain didn’t totally explode. And now, after spending enough time in this “tub,” I’m anchored enough that I can go back to my old places, old triggers, and remain stabilized in this new identity.
So you carry what you absorb in different places throughout your life.
Yes. For instance, I was able to form daily habits in Mysore that I brought back with me to Mumbai, which made my practice way better. My take on all of this is to always trust your own instincts first–your direct experience of the place, since astrocartography is only theoretical. When I’m reading the chart, there’s a literal, mathematical interpretation of what a planet in a house forming a specific aspect means, and then there’s the intuitive side of how I feel these circumstances will play out for you, personally, in that place. A lot of that is drawn from my own mad scientist experimentation on myself (taste-testing how I feel on this line vs. that) and what I’ve observed in friends and clients over the years.
Jennifer Vesta shuffling tarot in Bali.
When was astrocartography developed?
Well, astrology itself has been around for thousands of years. But originally, astrology was not for regular people. It was used primarily to interpret omens for the king and state, which is called mundane astrology (world astrology). Natal astrology (birth astrology) came more recently, and that’s the highly-personalized individual charts that we typically think of now, for exploring our personality and individual destiny.
“Locational astrology” is a similarly ancient practice, but astrocartography as it currently exists was coined and popularized in the late ’70s by an American astrologer named Jim Lewis. He created this system of overlaying an individual’s birth chart onto a world map, which shows how different locations can influence your personal, professional, and romantic experiences. Not to be morbid, but apparently he was hit by a car (not fatally) in Sydney, which was on his Mars line—Mars is linked to aggression and accidents. Anyway, this version of astrocartography originated in the ’70s but it’s gained significant traction recently via social media. So it’s been around for about 50 years, which is still pretty young.
So there may still be a lot of astrological modalities to come.
For sure. Our lives are changing so much, new things are possible now that were not before. Also, the reason astrology has become so democratized is because of new software developments that didn’t exist before. Anyone can do it now. Whereas in the past, only kings and queens could use astrology because the whole process was extremely expensive and involved time-consuming calculations done entirely by hand, primarily by old men with white beards. There are these huge books called ephemerides which you can technically still use if you want to take the analog approach.
Is AI reliable for looking up one’s astrology?
AI is not very good at interpreting charts holistically without clear parameters, but it is useful with literal, step-by-step questions, like “My Dubai relocation chart has a Leo ascendant with the sun, the ruler of the chart, in my first house. How will I feel in this city? ” And then you can layer from there, e.g. “It also puts Pluto on my IC. How does this color the above?” You have to manually feed and build the reading and correct any errors that arise.
AI makes tons of mistakes if you just ask a blanket question like, “My birth info is XYZ, what is my astrocartography for Mumbai?” or “Where should I have my solar return this year?” AI is just pulling from everything on the internet, so it’s not mathematically calculating the proper steps. Blindly trusting AI with astrology is like blindly trusting everything you read on the internet. You need some foundational knowledge of your own first to discern and direct the questions effectively. There are a bunch of astrology-focused AIs, but I haven’t found one that is any better than if I were just asking DeepSeek or ChatGPT directly (which I still prefer to Claude for these purposes). I’ve had some good experiences with AI doing a basic interpretation of a natal chart, but it takes an extra step of calculation to interpret any subsidiary chart (anything “derived” from the natal chart, e.g. astrocartography, solar return, transits, or anything “predictive”), and so far AI can’t do that yet. But if you are astrologically literate, then AI is definitely fun to play with and often gives you new ideas.
I think astrology is a kind of luxury. It’s a great tool to have, just like therapy, but if you’re not in a position to do it, I feel like it also doesn’t matter in the long run. You have the ability to make choices correctly for yourself. It just comes down to training and trusting your inner knowing. All these tools and modalities are just meant to help reaffirm what you already know, especially in times of doubt. But I know I can make the right decisions for myself without any of this. So any practitioner you see should always be empowering you, because the power is only ever within you, not anyone outside.