Where do you want to go? What do you want to see? Who do you want to meet? These were the questions that were on Andrew Pettifer and his wife Tracy’s minds when creating a bucket list for their midlife gap year one warm, summer evening, a glass of wine in hand, a notes app open in the other.
Andrew’s second book, Travels with Tracy: Tales from a Midlife Gap Year, is not your typical travel memoir. With successful careers behind them, supportive families and a lifetime of hard work up their sleeves, Andrew and Tracy decided to pack up their lives and embark on a richly diverse two-year journey across four continents, and every state in Australia.
From exploring the outback in an RV to five-star hotels and open-top sports cars, their journey unfolds with a variety of experiences most can only imagine. Brimming with unforgettable adventures and encounters with remarkable people, Andrew takes readers from the Shibuya crossing and earthquakes in Tokyo to the Louvre and the Olympics in Paris, then all the way to the Amazonian rainforest and the breathtaking Galápagos Islands.
Closer to home, he braves the Alps 2 Ocean trail in stunning New Zealand and discovers the wonder of crossing the Nullarbor while playing the world’s longest golf course. As their travels unfold, Andrew and Tracy begin to ponder what makes life important, think deeply about what makes us who we are, and together come to understand life’s ultimate question – who do you want to be?
In Travels with Tracy, Andrew’s thoughtful search for truth and identity – delivered with wit and a fast pace – will inspire you to box up your life and dive headfirst into an adventure of your own.
Travels With Tracy : Tales From a Midlife Gap Year by Andrew Pettifer was published on 1 September. by Hembury Books.
As part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour I am delighted to share an extract from the book with you today.
Extract from Travels With Tracy by Andrew Pettifer
Around the time that it opened in May 2022, I read an article about ABBA Voyage, a new show that uses computer generated avatars to perform a concert. Or, in this case, what they call ‘ABBAtars’. Producers wanting to cash in on the group’s ongoing popularity hounded the real Abba band members for years, wanting to organise a world tour, but they refused. Some very smart people then developed a new technology and pitched the idea of a lifelike virtual concert that would eliminate the band’s need to tour. They only needed to wear sensors and perform the concert in the studio a few times, enabling the computers to map their body movements to the music.
We entered the darkened arena about ten minutes before the advertised start time and found it much like any other music venue in the lead up to a concert. Seventies pop music entertained the crowd. The large mosh pit was already heaving at the front as people gathered close to the stage, keen to get close to their idols. That those idols were back in Sweden, no doubt relaxing in their pine saunas enhanced by the aroma of essential oils, seemed to have escaped these fans’ attention. Maybe they hadn’t read the small print.
Our seats were in the top row of the lower tier, about 15 rows back from the mosh pit floor. Behind us, a walkway wrapped around the venue in front of an upper tier which extended to the roof. To the left of the stage a band was warming up, as far as I could tell these were real actual people, of the flesh and bones variety. The atmosphere, in the sense of the prevailing mood, was one of excitement. In the sense of the air we were breathing, it was less engaging, containing the undeniable hint of body odour.
It was time for the show to begin. One by one, our heroes walked onto the stage, waving to the crowd. Agnetha, Bjorn, Benny and Anni-Frid were in our presence. Kind of. The technology, it has to be said, was mind blowing. The only way we knew this was not actually Abba on the stage was that they still looked as they had done in their pomp. Unless the clever people who came up with this entire event had also invented a time machine, this could not be real people, however much they looked like them. Not seeming too bothered one way or the other, the assembled 3,000 instantly suspended belief and bought into the notion that they were at an Abba concert, circa 1977. Well, nearly all of them did.
I turned to Tracy, to share this moment of wonderment, and was met by a furrowed brow.
“This is weird,” she said, looking around at the crowd as the ABBAtars started to sing, accompanied by the crowd. “Everyone seems to have lost their minds.”
“Just go with it. Forget they’re not actually human and enjoy the show,” I said.
“But it’s so weird,” Tracy said. “It’s freaking me out. It's a deep fake deception presented as entertainment.”
They say pop music is the soundtrack to our lives and Abba’s heyday coincided with my teenage years. It was a stage of life I loved; enjoying school, sport and girls, not necessarily in that order. My favourite band was The Jam, who were high on the cool quotient, but secretly I also loved Abba, who weren’t.
Unlike Tracy, I could put aside the undeniable weirdness of the whole experience and engage in two of my favourite activities; singing and dancing. The former I have got away with on the occasions that I have been persuaded, or was sufficiently inebriated, to take to the karaoke microphone. My dancing, on the other hand, is distinctly of the dad variety. So singing and dancing to Abba, flesh and bones or illusory pixels, I didn’t mind. It was just great fun to be reminded of the carefree days of my teenage years. I sang along to my heart’s content.
The show continued, the apparently real people in the band playing support to the virtual stars of the show. At times the production fell back on video, presumably to give the ABBAtars the opportunity for a virtual toilet break. Inevitably, the show reached a crescendo with the rendition of Dancing Queen. Even avatars like to be encouraged to do an encore, it seemed, so we all cheered and stamped our feet until they reappeared for a communal singing of The Winner Takes it All. The winner in this case being the people who came up with this idea, no doubt raking in the profits.
As the crowd waited to see whether a second encore would be forthcoming, something wonderful happened. The real Abba came onto the stage. Not the 1977 version but the elegant, but undeniably aged, 2023 version. Thanking everyone for coming and waving to the crowd for the last time, they sauntered back off the stage.
“Isn’t that amazing,” I said to Tracy, “they actually turned up to thank us after all.”
Tracy looked at me, hesitating momentarily before the undeniable truth came to both of us. ABBAtars can be whatever age the producers want them to be.
As we left the venue to walk back to our hotel, we shared our views on the show.
“The technology was unbelievable,” was my verdict. “Such a good show.”
“Just weird,” said Tracy.
Andrew Pettifer is a British–Australian author whose work explores the quirks of the human condition, the joys of travel, and a lifelong devotion to Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.
Born and raised in London, Andrew enjoyed a 35-year career as a chartered building services engineer, holding senior roles with global firms Arup and Mott MacDonald after relocating to Sydney in 2007. Throughout his working life, he cultivated an interest in leadership, human behaviour and storytelling. He has written extensively for the engineering industry, with articles published in The Fifth Estate and the CIBSE Journal.
In 2023, Andrew retired to pursue his passion for travel, sport and writing. With career ambitions fulfilled and a shared desire to live life to the full, he embarked on a midlife gap year with his wife Tracy that took them across four continents and every state in Australia. These journeys – filled with humour, insight and a fascination for people and places – inspired his upcoming travel memoir Travels with Tracy.
Andrew’s first book, When the Final Whistle Blows, is a deeply personal chronicle of the 2024/25 Spurs season under Ange Postecoglou, and a heartfelt tribute to Cameron Whyte, former leader of the Sydney OzSpurs and a warrior in his fight against cancer. Both books will be published by Hembury Books in 2025.
Andrew’s writing invites readers to reflect on their own stories, embrace new adventures at any age, and find meaning in life’s unpredictability. With a talent for finding humour in everyday moments, he shares tales of reinvention and resilience – and the emotional rollercoaster of following Tottenham Hotspur for over sixty years.
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