Pack Your Bags and Read Your Horoscope, Because Astrology-Themed Travel Is Having A Moment
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What makes you add a spot to your dream vacation list? Maybe a video from a travel influencer, a recommendation from a friend, or a TV show like Emily in Paris? For some people, the answer is astrology.
In the clearest cases of astro-inspired travel, there are the people who travel to view an astrological event...like oh, say, last week's eclipse. You might have seen some of your friends posting about taking a road trip to get the best views (or is it just me who's having totality FOMO?). You're definitely not alone: ABC News reported that the eclipse was expected to generate "at least" hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue in cities in the path of totality, where the eclipse is most visible. Some people began planning their eclipse vacay 15 years in advance! Michael Zeiler, who helps run the Great American Eclipse website, described it to Vox as the “equivalent to having 50 Super Bowls simultaneously from Texas to Maine.” Think of the Sun and Moon as Taylor and Travis, astrologically speaking.
But you don’t have to wait for another eclipse to plan a Moon-watching vacation. Last summer, I traveled to Hotel Riomar in Ibiza to watch the Full Moon rise over the ocean—and let me tell you, the view was much better than it is from the window of my Brooklyn apartment. In fact, a number of hotels and resorts in particularly scenic spots use celestial views as a way to draw in visitors like the Moon draws in the tides, including Mountain Shadows in Arizona and Rosewood Baha Mar in the Bahamas.
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And that brings me to another factor in the rise of astro-travel: Astro-themed hotel packages. In the biggest example of this yet, Moxy Hotels and the astrology app Sanctuary announced a yearlong “Cosmic Curations” partnership in January. Available at all of the 60-plus Moxy hotels worldwide, this travel partnership includes astro-inspired cocktails and coffee, pre-recorded horoscopes, and localized programming like an aura photography session or Full Moon watch party. The launch party in Miami, which I attended, included tarot readings, a “choose-your-crystal” station, aura photos, and even beach balls decorated to look like the Moon, craters included.
"People look to the stars for answers about many important aspects of life, such as love, money, career, and relationships," says Haley Houseman, Sanctuary Creative Director. "Recently though, we have seen a growing trend of people planning their vacations based on the stars, not only looking for inspiration about where to go based on their sign, but what their planetary lines tell them about when to go, and who to go with. Our partnership this year with Moxy Hotels is specifically designed to help enable this type of travel in 2024."
Other hotels have leaned into their existing astro-appeal to launch themed packages. The Memphian in Memphis, Tennessee features a bar called Tiger & Peacock with a stunning painted zodiac ceiling. The hotel opened in 2021, and after seeing how much of a draw the ceiling (and accompanying themed cocktails) were, they launched an “Astrology Overnight” package for 2024 featuring zodiac-themed gifts and a roof deck stargazing session.
“We have a whole astrological zodiac theme upstairs because our ceiling is hand-painted by a local artist, and I wanted to create something that everyone would be able to feel like they could find themselves up here,” Mary Loeb, owner of the Memphian, says. “There’s always something that can pique your interest with astrology, because it’s ancient and it’s also always changing.”
Finally, there’s astrocartography. This field of astrology involves mapping out your birth chart over a map of the Earth and seeing which locations intersect with various planetary lines, making them particularly lucky or particularly unlucky spots for you (apparently, I need to head to Australia to take full advantage of my birth chart). Although the roots of this field go back literally centuries and the modern system was developed in the ‘70s, interest in astrocartography has increased exponentially in recent years. Google search trends show that searches for “astrocartography” hit a five-year peak in December 2023. Over on TikTok, videos tagged #astrocartography have more 116 million views.
Lisa Stardust, an astrologer who offers astrocartography readings, says she saw interest in the field pick up in 2020, when many people were considering moving during the pandemic. "A lot of people were dreaming of a new version of life, and they wanted to know, Where should I move?"they say. When planning travel, they add, "it depends on the type of energy you're looking for." For vacation-planning, Stardust suggests looking at your Sun, Venus, and Jupiter lines in particular. And if your astrocartography hotspots are out of your budget, Stardust says that you can still have a great experience exploring that place's food, music, and movies without leaving your home. (Time for my Jacob Elordi movie marathon—astrocartography makes the rules.)
So if you waited too late to plan an eclipse vacay this time around, don’t worry! You have plenty of other opportunities to let ~the stars~ inspire your vacation plans.
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