(Found) Sci-fi short story about Tourist Avatars

[MikeG1958]

A disturbingly prophetic story about a time in human civilisation when people no longer go out. They live and work from small compartments. For annual holidays they travel the world remotely inhabiting avatars, described as small cubes with legs and arms that can be conveniently stacked and transported to tourist destinations. The subject of the story are a couple who haven't physically met for years. It finishes with a touching scene of their avatars, on holiday together, holding hands.
It would be a story from the 70s or 80s, I think. I was reminded of it by the Bruce Willis sci-fi movie "Surrogates - 2009" which is a similar concept.

 

[Ambrose]

It sounds like EM Forster's The Machine Stops, mutated.

 

[MikeG1958]

No, that wasn't the one I had read :-(

Thanks anyway

 

[MikeG1958]

Found it "The Sharks of Pentreath" by Michael C Coney

 

[Hugh]

It's always interesting to see how little stays immediately accessible in my memory bank. I know I've read the story in the past seven or eight years, and remember the title well, but the description... all I recall is the Cornish village.

 

[MikeG1958]

It's always interesting to see how little stays immediately accessible in my memory bank. I know I've read the story in the past seven or eight years, and remember the title well, but the description... all I recall is the Cornish village.

Indeed, it's fascinating the aspects that we remember, I had remembered the avatar tourist bit but completely forgotten the rest of the story and Cornish setting. Especially odd taking into account that I grew up in Cornwall. My excuse now is that it's was 50 years ago that I read it