First, does your map even count if you're just passing through?

It does, as long as you're not just there for a weekend. A relocated chart matters when you live somewhere else, as it will shift your natal planets into different houses and express their energies differently depending on the house strength and natal planetary conditions. Long stays count too, which is basically the nomad lifestyle. A three-month stay in Lisbon or Chiang Mai is long enough for that city's version of your chart to start showing up in your daily life.

The flip side is that a quick work trip or a long weekend is unlikely to change much. If you want to test a place, give it enough time to feel like a normal life, not a holiday.

Choose a base that feels good on a boring Tuesday

Your base is where you sleep, work, do your laundry and have your bad days. It doesn't need to be exciting. It needs to feel steady and supportive when nothing special is happening.

When I look for a base, I look for places where your angles connect to your strongest, most dignified planets. That's my number one technique, and it's the reason Bali works for me: my ascendant there trines my Saturn. Saturn isn't a glamorous planet, but in a good aspect it tends to bring structure and stamina, which is exactly what you want from a base.

It also helps to know what each angle covers. Your Ascendant is about how you feel in your own body and how people see you. Your IC is about home, rest and privacy. Your MC is about work, reputation and how you're seen professionally. A good base usually has something supportive on at least one of these, and nothing too heavy on the IC, because that's where you recharge.

Use short stays for specific goals

Once your base is sorted, the rest of your map starts to work like a menu. If you've got a creative project to finish, a month near a supportive Venus line could be lovely. If you're launching something or pitching investors, a stint near a Jupiter or Sun MC line might give you extra visibility. If you're burnt out, somewhere quiet near your Moon or a soft IC contact is often the better call.

This is also the safest way to test a place before you commit to it. Plenty of people fall in love with a city on holiday and then find it's a very different story once they're paying rent there.

You don't need to live right on the line

This one saves people a lot of money. Main astrocartography lines are felt roughly 450 to 600 miles either side, depending on which astrologer you ask. Some use an uneven orb, about 700 miles to the east of a line and about 400 miles to the west, because lines effectively drift from west to east over time. Parans are much tighter, about 70 miles or one degree of latitude.

So if your best line runs straight through a city you can't afford, look at the smaller towns around it. Being exactly on a line is also the most intense version of that planet, and a lot of people find living slightly off it much easier.

Bring the line to your laptop

This is the part remote workers tend to forget. You can use a line without ever living there. If you work for a company headquartered on one of your best MC lines, or build your clients, suppliers and partners from those countries, that line's energy comes to you through your inbox and your calendar.

So if your best career line runs through New York and your best home line runs through Lisbon, you might be able to have both. Live in one, earn from the other.

Notice which direction you're travelling in

Local Space adds another layer that's really useful for people who move around a lot. The direction you travel in carries planetary meaning too, not just the destination. If you're heading out along your Jupiter direction from your current base, that trip has a Jupiter flavour, even if the city at the end has no big lines of its own.

That's handy when you're choosing between two places that look similar on paper. Work out what you actually need, match it to a planet, and see which direction that planet points from where you are now.

Get the timing right

Even a great base can start badly if you arrive in the wrong year. Before you sign a long lease, I check your profection year, your solar return cast for the new city, and what's transiting your relocated angles. When a few of these agree, the first few months usually go a lot more smoothly.

I also use a timing method called Cyclo*Carto*Graphy, which shows when a place switches on for you. Your original lines don't change, but a passing transit can temporarily boost or dampen how a city feels while you're there. So if a place felt flat on your last visit, it might just have been the timing.

Plan your next base in 6 easy steps

• Step 1: Get your map. Pop your birth date, time and place into the AstroNat app or any astrocartography tool. Use your exact birth time if you can, because your angles and house cusps move fast.
• Step 2: Find your strongest planets. In your birth chart, look at each planet's dignity. Planets in their own sign or exaltation are strongest, and planets in detriment or fall are weakest. Pick the one or two strongest with easy aspects. Those are the lines you want near your base.
• Step 3: Shortlist bases near those lines. Look for cities within about 450 to 600 miles of where those planets sit on or aspect your angles, and cross off anywhere with a heavy planet sitting on your IC.
• Step 4: Check your relocated house cusps and their rulers. Cast your chart for each city on your shortlist. Note the signs on your 1st, 4th and 10th house cusps, which cover you, your home and your work. The planets that rule those signs become your key rulers for that city. For example, if Capricorn is on your relocated 10th cusp, Saturn rules your career there.
• Step 5: See where those rulers land and how strong they are. Check which relocated house each ruler falls in, because that tells you which part of life it gets tied to. A 10th ruler in the 9th can mean work through travel or foreign clients, which suits nomads well. Then check each ruler's dignity and aspects. A dignified, well-aspected ruler supports that area of life. A ruler in detriment or fall, or under hard aspects, means more effort there.
• Step 6: Match short stays to your goals, then check the timing. Venus lines for love and creative work, Jupiter or Sun on the MC for visibility, the Moon or a soft IC contact for rest. For MC lines you can't live on, look for clients or employers based there. Before you book anything long, check your profection year, your solar return for the city and transits to your relocated angles.

The practical stuff still wins

Before any of the astrology, check the time zone. If your clients are on New York hours and you're in Bali, you'll be working at 3am, and no Jupiter line will fix that. Check your visa too, how long you can actually stay and whether you're allowed to work. Test the internet and the cost of living before you commit, and look for some kind of community, because nomad life gets lonely much faster than Instagram suggests.

Don't forget real-world practicalities like your income, visa restrictions, family obligations, climate preferences & cultural assimilation like language etc. Your relocated charts won't show all that.

Can't travel right now? Read how to use astrocartography without moving abroad. Choosing between cities? Read 5 tips to find the best places to live or travel.

Questions people ask

Further reading: Jim Lewis & Ariel Guttman, The Astro*Carto*Graphy Book of Maps (1989); Steve Cozzi, Planets in Locality (1988).