Why people are relocating like never before

I am talking about so many of you aren’t I? You know I am. So many of you who now long to truly live your heart’s desire. Last year in 2024, with still a few short days to go, had been the year where we had all continued to be battered and thrown about by the planetary energies, whilst still trying to come to terms with just how much we suffered and how much we lost in the years between 2020 and 2023.

Then Pluto finally moved into the fixed air sign of Aquarius in November 2024 and things started to shift. Or so we thought. Then Mars decided to go retrograde in the fixed air sign of Leo, and to oppose Pluto until late January 2025, before finally going direct towards the end of February 2026.

All whilst Mercury is also retrograde spending three weeks in the post shadow phase, finally fully moving forward just after Christmas – check!

What an end to 2024! As an astrologer, I have seen the subtle yet deeply profound changes in how people have been relocating. During Covid it was a sense of “get me out of here, I don’t care to where”. Then as we emerged from the ravages of all the restrictions, people were taking more time to reflect and planning a move months down the line. Then in 2023 people were moving in stages, particularly with couples often deciding for one of them to move ahead of the other. In 2024 people have been doing a mixture of both – planning head and planning in stages. More and more people are trying more than one location.

The world is finally changing to keep up with this. Digital nomad visas have become the big thing – in Europe, formerly Eastern Europe and many Asian and south American countries. It truly has never been easier to relocate. Portugal was way ahead of the posse, being one of the first countries to introduce a digital visa, with many other countries following suit soon after. So Portugal, always a popular country to relocate to, was flooded with expats in no time. The Algarve became a haven for them. I was one of them for a while.

When you relocate, these are the crucial deep dive questions to ask yourself –

• What does your soul crave?
• What makes your heart sing?
• What have you always longed to do that would be easier to manifest in a new location?
• What are the most important things to you on a daily basis?
• Are you willing to change vocation?
• Are you willing to take unpaid leave?
• Are you willing to dip into your savings?
• Are you willing to take risks and feel uncomfortable for a while?
• And most importantly – how will your soul feel if you stay where you are?

If you don’t find yourself discussing it with all and sundry that’s a clue that you are on the right path. And of all the above questions the last one is almost the only one which really matters.

But then I know you already know that!

These days there is such talk of the fact that if you simply relocate, then all of your life will become easy. Relocated charts and astrocartography does not work like that, it is hugely influenced by your current transits as the urge to relocate rushes through you. For that is usually how it happens. You wake up one day deeply dissatisfied with your life You don’t know why. Often someone from the country you have in mind has appeared in your life as a trigger.

As happened me late Summer 2013. I had been friends with a passionate fiery Italian for over a year before relocating. He used to just looove telling me how I’d need to toughen up as I’d never survive somewhere like Italy! I found myself thinking “I so can, I’ll show you!!” At the time I hadn’t a notion of moving to Italy, yet it was the knowing of this fiery Italian that subconsciously had me planning that life changing five day research trip.

When I finally moved there in November 2014, my fiery Italian friend didn’t have too much to say at all at all!! I would meet up with him on my return trips to Ireland and all the while for my first few months there I found myself saying “be passionate, be brave, be daring.” And I was.

That is often all you need to do dear readers, Have the deepest conviction that you are indeed doing the right thing in relocating. Plan and then be prepared to throw those well made plans out the window if they don’t look like they will work.

As I did. My six months business plan went out the window in 10 days on arrival in Italy later 2014. I don’t have any regrets, not a single one. Flexibility is crucial. As it passion.

As is the deep inner utter and absolute conviction that you are moving towards a more authentic life when relocating.

People are never moving for a better job, or more money or a bigger house, even if that is what it feels like at the time. They are always but always moving for a deeper sense of home and feeling connected to the local community. Or a more spiritual life with all that may entail, including a letting go of the old one “you” for a more flowingly creative life.

It may not feel like that at the time, but let me tell you it is always for sure, one of the above reasons. After all we have been through these last four years, with so many of us having suffered unimaginable losses, now is the time to live our true authentic life.

Like never before.

We only have one life. Sometimes it is too easy to stay stuck where we are, there is after all, often a deep comfort in the constant complaining about all that may be wrong in our life. It can be so comfortable to stay stuck in our comfort zone, we can often spend years there.

Years which could be spent writing more, painting more, travelling more, laughing more, exploring more. Making new and deeply sustaining friendships. Or time spent learning to simply be more reliant on ourselves and our own inner instincts.

How empowering! To not listen to those who want to keep us small, but instead to listen to what that deep whisper in our soul is telling us. To have fun hanging out with strangers, listening to other points of view, other cultures, other ways of daily living.

That – just that – can be what changes our lives overnight. We may have lived in a large noisy city for too long and so now our soul craves some months in a small seaside village near nature. Or what is often overlooked, if we have lived in nature and solitude then maybe what we now need is the complete and I really do mean the complete opposite! A lovely city for a few months. Like New York, or Rome.

Life is not meant to be lived in black and white. But too often we forget that too. Life is not meant to be grey either. Life is meant to be lived and loved in glorious technicolour, some of the time anyway. It is what re-energises our soul, gives us back our joie de vivre.

So if you are thinking of relocating, I urge you to be bold and daring in your dreams. No more playing small, or staying stuck in the complacency of your current life. The above line was means to say life is meant to be lived in glorious technicolour but I wrote the word loved instead. No coincidence.

And when you relocate, don’t let anyone tell you how long to stay somewhere to feel connected. Let your soul tell you instead. When you arrive in your new location, give yourself at least a week to find your way around. Get lost, leave your phone off. That’s what heightens your sense of direction but also leads to your discovering places you would otherwise maybe never discover. Feck Google maps! I mean it!

So these are the utterly soul simple reasons why people are relocating like never before. Their soul craves more connection. Whether that’s a simpler, slower country life or an energising electrifying city life – well that’s up to you. But then you know you know that already.

Don’t listen to your friends, or your partner, or your boss. Or well meaning acquaintances. Listen to your soul, listen to those quiet whispers telling you “there’s more.” Listen to the whispers before they become roars. As I assure you, they will. And faster than you can ever imagine.

Listen quietly to those oh so subtle whispers. Let them guide you. As you know they will.

In 2025 not only do we have Uranus moving into Gemini on 7th July proceeded by Neptune moving into Aries on 30th March, we also have the social planets changing signs. Jupiter’s move into Moon ruled Cancer on 9th June led to an emphasis on finding home, or creating a more emotionally supportive sense of our tribe. Which of course may mean travelling to find a deeper sense of home and connection.

And Saturn also moving into Aries on 24th May was very overlooked until just a few weeks ago. Saturn in Aries will for sure, lead to a deeper sense of sovereignty around ourselves and how we structure our own lives. It will lead to a warrior like sense of staying fiery, focused and structured around what most matters to us, a sense of wanting to take fiery charge of our day to day structure.

It will also lead for sure to a deeper level of courage in changing our lives. Of finding a deep courage we did not even know we had.

Wait for it. Or better still prepare for it. To be ready to relocate with warrior like fearlessness. Sometimes we need a quiet place for a while, whilst we reset during our relocating. But usually only for a short while. So don’t get stuck in the ease of it all – your soul is meant for more. And as I said before, don’t let anyone tell you how long to “give” a new place before you feel settled. I felt settled in Lucca within 24 hours – that was why I eventually returned there. How will your soul know I hear you ask? I assure you, it will!

There will be an utter sense of “Oh here it is, here I am at last” and that’s how you know. Your daily life will flow, opportunities will simply present themselves. As it did for me in my beloved Provincetown in 2018 and 2019 – a bi-monthly Playwrights Lab which then led to weekly open mic sessions, then to a Mosquito story slam and from that to a weekly memoir group. A quietly creative life, grounded in the community and it was all about creating art and all of us supporting each other. Which we quietly did.

That was my life then, it’s not my life now but I carry what I learnt from those years with me everywhere. As you will too. 2025 is the year when we walk away from our old life like never before. Saturn moving into Aries in particular will lead to more ownership around how we make decisions. We will own those decisions more, as indeed we know we need to.

Don’t let anyone tell you how long you need to stay somewhere. Your new place may only be a temporary stop. Let that be so – let go of how long you feel you want to stay somewhere. I spent too long in Portugal trying to build the life I thought I wanted but it seemed God had bigger plans for me as was subsequently catapulted into a whole new Italian life in the Southern Italian region of Reggio Calabria (via a dental emergency – how Saturnian!). I am still processing how amazing it all is and how seamlessly it all unfolded.

It is a different reset this time round, more of which anon.

So to aid you all on a practical level, I am currently updating my list of practical resources and tips and hints as to how to prepare, what you may need, and it will be on my website shortly. Do email me if you would like a copy – info@marthaclarkeastrology.com.

And I hope you enjoy reading my previous two blogs depicting the trip of a lifetime crossing the Transatlantic on the Blue Clipper Tall Ship!