November 2024 Horoscope: Pump the Brakes on Travel Planning This Month | Condé Nast Traveler

Meet your astrologer

Steph Koyfman is a writer and astrologer best known for her work as Lady Cazimi. She writes the monthly horoscope for Condé Nast Traveler's Women Who Travel.

Welcome to your November 2024 horoscope. It’s around this time each year that the faster-moving planets bound into Sagittarius, heightening our enthusiasm for life and igniting the flame that keeps all explorers and truth-seekers restlessly in pursuit of a new adventure. But this year, the vibe is a little less “chasing new horizons” and a bit more “hold your horses, even if they’re champing at the bit.” There’s very little about the current sky that encourages “full steam ahead.” Mars is slowing to a standstill by the end of November, and Mercury is too—meaning both of these planets, which are associated with planning, strategy, and execution, are about to be retrograde. Saturn also stations direct on November 15, which gives this month a sense of weight as some of the circumstances we’ve been in a transitional place with over the summer become more certain and fixed in place—perhaps enough to cancel out other possibilities.

Even though the universe is sending us signals to slow down in November, we’ll still be hungry for the idea of something, or for something to look forward to. In fact, you might find that your eyes are bigger than your stomach this month when it comes to dreaming up potential futures or mood boarding all of your bucket list trips. Generally speaking, it’s not the best time to be making concrete plans right now, but a girl can dream. Rather than frustrate yourself trying to predict where all those moving targets are going to land, we’ll all be better off if we can remain flexible and focus on clarifying the vision instead.

And yes, everyone’s favorite transit creates the potential for travel mishaps in November and December. This particular Mercury Retrograde is especially chaotic-looking, occurring in the sign of Mercury’s detriment (Sagittarius) and opposing a retrograde Jupiter that’s also in detriment. However, Mercury and Jupiter are exchanging signs, so perhaps you can still make an omelet out of all of those eggs you didn’t break on purpose. Mercury stations retrograde on November 25, but some hilarity, hijinks, crossed wires, and bad games of telephone will ensue as early as November 2, after it enters Sagittarius.

Astrologer's note: Below we refer to your signs as “rising” signs, also known as your ascendant sign. Horoscopes are more accurate when read this way—using your birth time and location, you can quickly find your rising sign online (it takes less than 30 seconds).

If ever there was a time to stay light on your feet and maintain a sense of humor about it all, you’re looking at it right now. On one hand, you’re feeling somewhat embattled, definitely a bit blocked, and maybe even preemptively defeated on account of your ruling planet, Mars, slowing to a halt in November and facing off with Pluto. And on the other hand, Mercury is about to retrograde through the part of your chart associated with travel. Any trips you take this month or next could be infused with an element of slapstick comedy—the kind you’ll laugh about later but might not find so funny when you wind up at the wrong airport because of a typo.

Mars makes its first exact opposition to Pluto on November 3 before moving into Leo later that same day. A situation that’s been agitating you for the past two months comes to a head early in the month, leading you to feel defensive, disempowered, or maybe just furious. This is probably hitting close to home for you, either literally involving some aspect of your living situation or your family. Confronting someone close to you can be triggering, but so is lacking a sense of sanctuary in your own home. These are questions that likely can’t be resolved easily, but that’s the nature of digging up ancient rage that was never properly dealt with to begin with. Some medicine is meant to burn on the way down.

Though you might be feeling the frustration (and maybe the lack of agency) something heavy this month, there are things popping in your professional life, and you might get some solace out of exploring unfamiliar places and concepts. Venus sweetens your adventures until November 11 and provides a subtle heart-opening effect that allows you to connect more easily with those you meet on the road. After that, Venus will be gracing your work life and public-facing projects, allowing you to receive the flowers (read: recognition) you’ve worked so hard for. An important turning point arrives on November 16, asking you to choose either the left turn or the right based on what aligns with your values most.

About those travels though: with Mercury preparing to station retrograde on November 25, much of the month may be spent blundering onto trails that won’t be straightforward to find your way back from. In plain speak, this might not be the best time to commit to future travel, because a later version of you might wonder what you were thinking when you booked that 40 minute layover or self-guided tour through the marshlands.

November is full of twists and turns for you, and you might even surprise yourself when all is said and done. Between a messy state of transition in your financial situation, not seeing entirely eye to eye with the people in your inner circle, and an important crossroads you’re about to reach mid-month, this could wind up being one of the more pivotal moments in your year.

Some of these things might show up as mundane nuisances to be dealt with, but they’re likely occurring in the context of some recent changes in your work life, or perhaps even a bigger shift in the way you conceptualize your service to the world. In the midst of, say, a literal job change, there might be some confusion to navigate in the period between paychecks as Mercury prepares to station retrograde on November 25. And in the wake of overhauling your entire workflow, there are exchanges and transactions occurring that aren’t so cut and dry. Your balance sheet might need to be checked, and checked again, before everything’s operating smoothly.

There could also be some tension simmering in your close friendships and family relationships, especially early in the month. Reunion trips could feel slightly fraught with questions of “who’s going to address the elephant in the room?” People might be feeling defensive and somewhat on edge right now, and perhaps you’ll find yourself in a position to tackle that conversation with honesty and maturity. This might be a loaded topic that can’t be easily resolved in one go, but how you handle it now sets the tone for how you handle it later. Just remind yourself to be intentional with the words you choose, because the potential for foot in mouth syndrome increases for everyone with Mercury in Sagittarius all month.

Venus enters Capricorn on November 11, paving the way for a pleasurable getaway or an investment in a high-quality experience you’ll treasure. However, with Venus approaching a square to the lunar nodes on November 16 just one day after the full moon in Taurus lands in your rising sign, this feels like a big (and potentially disruptive) moment for you. You will feel like you’re approaching a turning point mid-month, one that’s motivated by personal freedom but may take the shape of an ethical or navigational choice in practice. To put it bluntly, that trip you’re taking mid-month could have a profound impact on you, but so could the adventure you choose to take at the expense of the one you were already on.

You might be feeling pretty bullish about the vision you’re co-creating with someone else, and you’re not wrong to be excited about all that potential. That said, there’s a real risk this month of putting the horse before the cart. Whether you’re feeling invested in someone new, having “future” talks with an established boo, planning a trip with your travel partner, or negotiating a less sexy contract with a business partner or client, the theme of November is: assume nothing.

While Venus makes an extravagant opposition with Jupiter on November 3 and encourages you to overextend yourself a bit relationally, Mercury also spends the month overshooting its arrow in Sagittarius, your seventh house of partners, before stationing retrograde on November 25—an omen that you might spend December correcting the oversights and miscommunications you went astray with in November. Yes, it seems likely that you’ll ultimately work it out in the end. But for now, your best advice is to not automatically assume others are on the same page, or that you understood each other correctly the first time, or that the conversation you’re having now is the conversation you’re going to be having a month from now.

With so much seemingly up in the air at the moment, you might be wondering what’s worth taking at face value. It does seem like things are cohering for you professionally somewhat after a summer of provisional or temporary conditions, but you might not be over the moon excited about it. This turn of events might be coming with a side dish of financial stress, or perhaps because your survival instincts are kicking in and motivating you to “do the responsible thing” to stay afloat. Yes, this might mean sacrificing travel in the meantime while your budget demands it, but keep your eye on the prize.

On November 3, Mars enters Leo, your third house of short trips and close connections. Even if you’re putting the jet-setting on ice for now, you may actually end up being busier this month with weekend trips out of town (or to a friend or family member’s neck of the woods). While some of this busy spell might stimulate and invigorate you, there’s also some potential for old conflicts and resentments to come roaring back. There’s nothing to fear if you embrace the attitude that conflict is an invitation into deeper intimacy. Just try not to respond from a reactive place—remember, when Mercury is retrograde, you might have to backpedal on some of those things you said.

The mounting tension in your relationships might feel transformed on the other side of this month, so if you’re feeling on edge going into November, rest assured that the energy will shift once you confront the issue head-on. Mars—which has been agitating you during its two-month stay in Cancer so far—completes its opposition with Pluto on November 3, bringing things to a boil between you and a significant other. Though you will need to bring plenty of awareness to your own reactivity, defensiveness, and triggers, summoning the internal fortitude to “go there” with somebody else might be the only way through the gauntlet.

Also on November 3, Mars exits Cancer—for now. Venus enters your seventh house of partnerships on November 11, and Pluto exits that part of the sky forever on November 19. All of these events will lessen the intensity you’re feeling right now and perhaps even dissipate the conflict to some extent. Venus’ presence provides opportunity for repair, and Pluto’s exit brings a massive chapter of your life to a close: one that has catalyzed deep, uncomfortable awakenings in your relationships and forced you to face your own shadow through the shadows of others since 2008. Take this opportunity to decompress and take stock of your inner landscape, because Mars will return to Cancer while retrograde in January, and your training montage will resume at that point—just maybe without so much of the relational intensity and shadowy opponents.

Saturn also spends the month stationing direct in your ninth house of travel, beliefs, and education (exact on November 15). Since late June, certain things about that area of your life may have felt up in the air, or at least not as rigidly set in stone, giving you permission to play within those flexible conditions and move the goalposts. Now, the provisional period is ending as things settle into a more fixed paradigm again. How are you recommitting yourself now to the long-haul pilgrimage, or the quest for meaning you’ve been on for the last year and a half? A journey of a thousand miles begins with a few steps, and your doubt can be your biggest teacher. It’s time to lean once more into the due diligence of seeing this process through to the end, of wrestling with your faith, asking the hard questions, and staying the course.

It’s been harder than usual to summon the strength to overcome your own inertia lately, and for the most part, you haven’t really been able to name why. A sense of powerlessness and victimhood has been gnawing at you for the past couple months, and it’s about to become much harder to ignore where you’re lacking the fight to deal with your life. Perhaps the silver lining to Mars moving into Leo on November 3 is that you’ll soon be dealing with this haunting spirit out in the open, where you can clearly identify and confront the way your inner beast is wounded and crying out for help. This may not be your season of victory, but it will lead you through a sorely needed process around reclaiming your power and reigniting your fuse.

If you’re feeling lost in the meantime, art therapy is probably your best bet for moving through this moment in a medicinal way. Mercury spends the month preparing to retrograde in Sagittarius, your fifth house of creativity and self-expression. This can be a meaningful time to put your pencil to the paper, dust off some unfinished drafts of songs you wrote years ago, and perhaps take up an old hobby you haven’t touched in awhile. Revisiting things that once brought you joy can help you get back in touch with the parts of yourself you lost along the way. If what you’re feeling is stuck and uninspired, traveling with the aim of calling the muse back in is a great reason to skip town. Visit a museum that houses some of your favorite works of art, a city where you once fell in love, or a nice pocket of nature where you can relax and paint.

Though you’re feeling the instinctual urge to slow down, this might still be an eventful month where your career is concerned. The full moon in Taurus on November 15 is a bit of a status-quo-disruptor, bringing a professional matter to a head in a way that radically shifts the frame of possibility and encourages you to step more fully into your authenticity. If there’s attention on you and the kind of work you do in the world, make sure it’s the kind of attention that affirms what you’re really here to do.

The next month or two might amount to a bit of a homecoming for you, but finding your way back to baseline might require taking a pretty circuitous route through your family photo albums, childhood memories, and old addresses. In this interim period where not much feels set in stone and a lot of things are up in the air, your quest for meaning (and for your life to make sense) will likely need to begin at the root, where you were formed by your own heritage and origin story.

This process begins in earnest with Mercury’s entry into Sagittarius on November 2, your fourth house of ancestry, home, and family. With Mercury getting ready to station retrograde on November 25, much of November and December will be spent stumbling through a disorganized process of sorting through your family history, having clarifying conversations with your elders, or figuring out your living situation. Don’t be surprised if you overshoot your mark initially, or find yourself lost in a maze of misunderstanding. This is probably not going to be a simple process, but rather one that requires multiple attempts and revisions. If you’re signing any paperwork this month (like a lease or a deed), take extreme care with reading everything carefully and confirming that everyone’s on the same page. It will be easy to fudge over some crucial details, but definitely more complicated to get it all straightened out again.

If this journey you’re on necessitates some travel to ancestral lands or places you once called home, consider this your personal Garden State saga. There are threads here that don’t just connect you to your past, but to the future you’re trying to build professionally and romantically. In fact, with Saturn stationing direct this month in your seventh house of partnerships, something about the “relationship question” that’s been in a “wait and see” flux state is solidifying right now, and you owe it to yourself (and any potential significant others) to make sure your foundation is solid enough to show up in a dependable way.

On November 15, there’s a full moon cresting in the part of the sky that’s connected to your spirituality, politics, schooling, and travel habit. Something in your current paradigm might suddenly shift mid-month to allow in new kinds of experiences, fresh perspectives, and radical awakenings in your philosophical orientation toward the world. Perhaps you’ll finally be in the right place to pull the trigger on a long-dreamed-about trip, or surprise yourself by spontaneously saying “yes” to an adventure you didn’t even have on your radar. There are times to question your impulses, and times to just go with it. Let yourself follow your excitement for a change.

It’s no simple ask to divide your attention between planning and nesting mode, but your mind (and heart) is somewhat split this month. On one hand, there are logistical mazes to be navigated as you prepare to set sail for distant horizons in the future. And on the other hand, there are plenty of reasons to want to pour your love into the familiar places and people that make a house a home. It’s one thing to give yourself things to look forward to, and it’s another to neglect enjoying the present moment. Can you keep your eye on the prize and love where you’re at all at once?

Mercury will spend the month careening through Sagittarius in anticipation of its retrograde station on November 25. For you, this could look like mowing through some written assignments for school or trying to get an application together (perhaps for that visa you’re trying to snatch?). This could also be a busier month than usual where meetings and commuting is concerned, and there is also an element to the commotion that likely involves planning for the future and envisioning next steps. One piece of advice that’ll serve you no matter the context: try not to get ahead of yourself, and mind the details more than you’re naturally inclined to. This will be a longer and more complicated process than you anticipate, and the potential for error is high in November—forgetting crucial information, getting lost on your way, and blurting out the wrong thing are all plausible scenarios. At least you could wind up on some interesting side quests and philosophical tangents if you do get derailed?

Your ruling planet, Venus, spends the first half of November in the same part of the sky, and then it decamps to Capricorn, your fourth house of home and family, on November 11. Spending time with friends, siblings, and family you haven’t seen in a while could be a sweet and pleasant distraction for you while you’re figuring out the more distant elements of your life. Even with your goals on the agenda, don’t overlook the pleasures that are easily within reach right now. Your own backyard is kind of where it’s at right now, and you might be pleasantly surprised by how fun a staycation could be, or how happening your own neck of the woods is. To that end, though, you might feel as though you’re crossing an important threshold around November 16 as Venus squares the lunar nodes. You can’t always go home again, and you might still have one more important reckoning to make on your way into the future.

Either you’re getting ready to pivot right now, or you’re about to be somewhat derailed by circumstances beyond your control. But if what you’re feeling most of all is fed up and over it, you might soon decide to quit while you’re ahead. Mars, your ruling planet, opposes Pluto before departing the moody waters of Cancer and entering Leo on November 3. Your simmering frustrations from the past month or two reach a bit of a breaking point early in the month before changing form, or perhaps putting you in a better position to actually do something about it in the coming weeks. This does look mostly work-related, but rage-quitting isn’t your only option here. There are other, maybe subtler, ways for you to rebel against the expectations of society/your higher-ups/the demands of your role, but you might have to sacrifice a little bit of your pride to win the war of attrition.

Your grievances might be political or ethical in nature, but this is more so about your role in the world and what you’re willing to continue participating in. If you travel a lot for work, you might also be feeling the burnout catching up to you right now. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask your boss if you can take a break from having to take so many business trips—you’ll probably benefit from a breather or tactical pause over these coming months while you figure out what you have the capacity for going forward.

Though November will amount to a personal reset for you in the long run (based on all of the above things), what follows from there in the meantime is a bit of transitional chaos money-wise, and also potentially some clarity coming in regarding the needs of your partner and children, if you have a family. Maybe you’ll do some temporary role-swapping between breadwinner and caretaker, or maybe you’ll have to redo your budget over the next month or two to accommodate new circumstances in your shared lives. For the single and/or childless among you, the above will mostly still apply, but maybe more from the perspective of navigating a professional transition, defining your creative direction, and coming to grips with how much you can or can’t rely on others to pull their weight. For now, try to move with the assumption that your current figures are off, and that you might need to budget more for incidentals and sloppy math. This is also not the best time to be making important purchases, so maybe hold off for now on booking that cruise or applying for that travel credit card.

If you feel yourself starting to get sidetracked this month while you’re presumably on your way to getting your act together, remind yourself that not all who wander are lost. There are detours and sidequests ahead of you that can’t be circumvented, and when all is said and done, you’ll be glad you took the scenic route.

Mercury enters Sagittarius on November 2, where it will stay for an extra long time (about two months instead of the usual three weeks) due to its upcoming retrograde that begins on November 25. Additionally, Mars enters Leo, your ninth house of long journeys, on November 3; it will also stay here for roughly two months as it stations retrograde. November and December are shaping up to be important transitional months for you that may take the form of rerouting your internal GPS after blundering wildly off course. You may not know it yet, but the goalposts are about to shift for you, and you might end up on your way to a different destination by the time winter is through. Although this can be a confusing time (and an error-prone one at that), your mistakes will provide you with important learning opportunities and may turn out to be blessings in disguise. Assume for now that overestimating your arrow’s aim might actually be necessary for it to arrive on target.

In more practical terms, this period of internal evaluation may find you reconsidering your goals when it comes to travel or education, especially with respect to your current financial limitations. Your student loans could be a real sticking point right now, as could the credit card debt you amassed from your last big trip. In the face of all these very real material limitations, though, larger questions may loom, like: “Where do I see myself in the next year or five?” and “Am I walking this path alone?” There are likely some important conversations you’ll need to have (and keep having) with a romantic or platonic partner over the next several weeks, especially if the shared vision you’ve been cultivating so carefully is now starting to diverge.

On November 21, the Sun bounds into Sagittarius and provides you with a little extra charge and vitality to see this process through. Early November will feel swampier and more low-energy in comparison, and your existential malaise might feel like a bigger problem to contend with. From late November onward, you’ll feel yourself coming back online. Don’t underestimate how clarifying it will be to feel connected to your life force as you navigate this maze.

Life just got very real for you for a hot minute, but the good news is that you’re almost through the gauntlet. A confrontation that’s been building over these past several weeks reaches critical mass on November 3 as Mars opposes Pluto, but by the second half of the month, both of these planets will be in different parts of the sky (and more relevantly to you, no longer quite as in your face). Though Mars will return to your seventh house of relationships in January during its retrograde, suggesting there are further aspects to this conflict that will come up for resolution in the early months of 2025, Pluto’s permanent departure from your rising sign on November 19 means you’re officially graduating from the school of learning to wield your own power. These disagreements may not feel quite as dire and threatening to you as they do now, especially if you’re finally getting to the bottom of the root psychological cause and seeing yourself more clearly than you have in years.

Additionally, Venus entering Capricorn on November 11 sweetens your reality for the next couple of weeks and encourages you to relax out of fight or flight mode and into your best hair day. You’ll feel more magnetic, effortlessly charming, and flirtatious as November edges onward. If you’ve got people to see, places to be, and looks to serve, the second half of the month is more favorable for putting your best travel selfies forward. On November 15 and 16, Venus squares the lunar nodes while your ruling planet, Saturn, stations direct and a full moon blooms in Taurus. Mid-month is an important turning point for you, one that asks you to choose with your heart as you move forward in the direction of your greatest fulfillment and self-expression. Some of your creative projects might bear fruit around this time, and you might have an important awakening around your own pleasure and happiness.

While the next month or two will offer you a little bit of temporary respite from recent stressors, beneath it all is a sense of being in limbo. As Mercury decamps to your liminal twelfth house for pretty much the entirety of November and December, you, too, might experience your fair share of confusion, crossed wires, and not being sure which way is up. In the “quiet” period between more direct confrontations, you may also have some important realizations—who is the real enemy you’re shadowboxing with, and how are your own subconscious programs making things harder for you? The holidays lend themselves to quiet contemplation as it is, so this wouldn’t be a bad time to carve out some sort of solo or intimate group healing retreat for yourself.

At this point, you’re so used to the bogeyman under the bed being a murky wraith you can never clearly glimpse, that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to not be waiting for the other shoe to drop. But this month’s biggest news is that Pluto leaves the shadows of your twelfth house forever on November 19 after taking up residence there since 2008. And when it does, it settles firmly into Aquarius for the next two decades. What this means for you in practical terms is that your era of obsessively therapizing yourself is drawing to a close, and the long arc of you claiming your power is beginning. Consider yourself a stagnant, dry forest that may require the initiation of a regenerative fire before you can embrace your inner baddie. After so many years of self-inquiry and being blindsided by hidden enemies who played dirtier than you realized they were capable of, it’s time for you to enter your “villain era” and refuse to feel victimized by life anymore.

Of course, don’t expect these lessons to land all at once, or to feel this shift in a palpable way. You’ve already had a little bit of a preview of what’s to come over the last year and change, but the real work takes time. As for November, your first signal that the rules of engagement are changing comes after Mars enters Leo on November 3. There’s been tension simmering at work, or perhaps a sense of mounting frustration around everything that’s on your plate (and how resourced you feel, health or time-wise, to get it all done). Early in the month, your feelings of helplessness transform into a more direct interpersonal conflict. Remember, in this new era we’re not fighting with a nameless entity—we’re claiming our agency and unmasking the Scooby Doo villain. For now, you might just start by realizing you have a bone to pick with someone in particular, and that you can set the tone by choosing to engage differently than you would have in the past.

On November 15, your ruling planet, Saturn, stations direct, which adds to the feeling that you are firmly turning a corner this month. Combined with the full moon in Taurus happening on the same day, Saturn’s station direct may deliver a “final answer” to you (for now) regarding your current earning potential and purchasing power, especially as it relates to your living situation. If it helps, consider that a year from now, you might not be dealing with quite as much uncertainty around your finances or housing. But if the “results” you’re getting now are less than ideal, this is also information you can use to course-correct. If a move is potentially on the table for you, maybe now is the right time to start scouting locations as you search for a more favorable housing or rental market. It wouldn’t be the worst excuse you’ve ever made to take a trip.

In your experience, Scorpio Season naturally lends itself to engaging with life’s mysteries and approaching the world as a big unknown to be interrogated. Travel and learning are rarely casual endeavors for you—more often they take the form of spiritual initiations and a relentless pursuit of totality in your knowledge (or in leaving no stone unturned on your restaurant recommendation list). This November is hardly an exception to that rule, especially if your life choices have been weighing heavier on your mind lately. Saturn’s station direct in your rising sign on November 15 creates an imperative to separate what’s necessary from what’s not adding value or meaning to your life, to honor your limitations and potentially make peace with how you’ll need to move forward from here. Travel is really just soul-searching at the end of the day, and you’ll be digging deep this month in an effort to arrive at the truth.

While this forms the subtext for a lot of what you’re feeling this month, there are more obvious forms of commotion occurring, particularly where work is concerned. Mars enters Leo on November 3, and Mercury spends the month in Sagittarius preparing to station retrograde on November 25. Both of these transits involve your professional life and projects, and both of them will inevitably bring up some frustration and confusion around how to salvage something that doesn’t appear to be working. On one hand, you might be struggling to shore up the motivation necessary to get it all done. On the other hand, it doesn’t necessarily feel like the right time to be moving forward with things. Biding your time can be strategic. You’ll need longer than you’re probably bargaining for now to rethink and revise, so don’t try to force anything if you’re encountering resistance.

If those aspects of your life feel discouraging, sweet relief arrives this month in the form of a social gathering or group hug. Venus enters your eleventh house of community on November 11, greasing the wheels for you socially and populating your universe with more friendly faces. This can be a busier-than-usual spell for your social life, or a more magically synchronistic time to get from point A to point B because you know someone who knows someone who you should really talk to. Some of these connections may feel like more than a chance encounter, particularly around November 16, when Venus squares the lunar nodes and advances the plot through a subtle date with destiny. Now is not the time to isolate yourself or bear your burdens alone, even if you’re the only one who can solve your problems at the end of the day.

Enjoyed your November 2024 horoscope? Look back on October to see how things lined up.