Travelling and music have been part of Andy's life since the start. Born in Zurich, Switzerland to American parents, he spent the first five years of his life living in Los Angeles. He and his family then moved to Connecticut, then on to Oak Park, Illinois, where he started piano lessons at age 8. His family finally settled for his high school years (and guitar lessons) in western Pennsylvania. He earned a bachelor's degree from Penn State University in Environmental Engineering, paying his expenses by playing guitar and keyboards for four years in a popular rythym & blues band called Big Bad Wolf.

After an 18 month work assignment in San Diego, where he also indulged in long board surfing, songwriting, beach volleyball, and expeditions to Baja Mexico, Andy accepted a two year assignment as a design engineer on a city water project in Lusaka, Zambia, which extended to nearly five years in total. During that time he had the opportunity to organize and perform in a popular dance rock band called the Kabulonga Surfers, explore the African bush, and travel throughout southern Africa including Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Lesotho, South Africa and Tanzania.

His favorite place to spend adventure time became the wildlife rich Lower Zambezi valley in Zambia, and in 1997 he took a break from full time employment for seven months to work as a safari guide for the Royal Zambezi Lodge in the Lower Zambezi National Park. During this time, he worked on a $400/month salary, lived in a small hut on the Zambezi River, and survived two bouts with amoebic dysentery. While leading walking safaris in the park, he came close to danger several times from charging elephants and hippos, and had close encounters with lions on kills. Along with other guides, he flew several risky anti-poaching patrol missions across the park in a Piper Cub with an American pilot who also volunteered for Conservation Lower Zambezi. The evening campfires were a great solace however, as he was able to try out many new original songs for the visting guests. It was during this time he decided to begin a full time career as a singer-songwriter and share his life stories through acoustic rock music. He also set a goal to break completely from the traditional corporate path, which had previously found him soul searching.

After nearly six years of living overseas Andy returned to the USA in early 1998. He lived for nine months near Porter Square in Boston, honing his live music performing skills, songwriting, and searching for an adventure travel destination in the USA to base from. A two week getaway trip to Anchorage in the summer of 1998 inspired him enough to move to Alaska, create the Anchorage Guest House, and launch a national music career via a completely independent record label called Adventure Travel Music. In 2001 he toured as a solo artist from Auckland to Queenstown in New Zealand, bungy jumped the Kawaru River, The Ledge and Nevis Canyon. He then returned to Alaska to release a new CD of upbeat original acoustic rock songs called Queenstown.

His music performances have now expanded to national tours, and have included opening sets for John Prine and The Spin Doctors. He is currently writing a book called Foreign Land, which describes his adventures in Africa. He will release a new CD called American Journey in the fall of 2005. So if you have a chance to stay as a guest at the Anchorage Guest House, you may be able to catch Andy for some travel tips, and maybe even a house concert and some travel stories. You can read more about Andy's music journey, listen to songs, and follow his national tour here at www.andybakerlive.com