Where in the World is Lori Rowe?
She may be Marco Polo, Jacques Cousteau, and Dora the Explorer all rolled into one. Former South Carolina volleyball standout Lori Rowe (1983-1986), who was part of the Gamecocks’ first NCAA Tournament team in 1984, may have retired from her career in finance a few years ago, but she’s not exactly spending her time idly on the couch or under a beach umbrella somewhere. She and her husband, Barney Green, have spent most of the last several years sailing all across the Atlantic Ocean, driving a van across North America, and lacing up the hiking boots to go backpacking through South America.
“We made it our objective five years ago that we would sail across the Atlantic in our boat, and we did it,” said Rowe, who is originally from Canada but has lived in London since 1990. “We left the U.K. in 2020, and we sailed to Spain, down the Portugal coast and then COVID kind of put us off a year, but we kept traveling, doing our thing. Then we went on to the Canary Islands, Cape Verde, which is just off the coast of Africa, up at Ghana I think, and then we crossed the Atlantic in November 2021. It took about two weeks with five of us on board. It was fantastic! We got to Grenada, and we did some seasons in the Caribbean.”
While she wasn’t done there, there was some initial trepidation before they actually got started on the 51-foot boat and a five-person party that included other family members.
“My husband is a super-good sailor, and I’m not,” Rowe said with a laugh. “I’m a control freak, and I was not interested. I stuck with it because I love him. I did all the training with all the navigation and sea survival courses and all that. It’s still not my natural place. I’m a land girl.
“We hit some squalls as you would expect, but it was pretty good. The boat was solid. There were some huge seas and wind.”
Later they dropped anchor and prepared for their next set of journeys.
“My family still lives in Canada, so we went and our bought ourselves a van and traveled around the U.S.,” Rowe said. “Oh my God, what a fantastic country! We went straight out west and started at Mount Rushmore. We did a big c-shape around the country. We avoided big cities, except to see my son in San Franciso, and went to all the national parks on what was around a 10-week trip. It was superb. We had the best time. Then we did the east coast the next year. We did about eight weeks in that second trip.”
“I know there are lots of adventurous things to do there if you're fit and young, but I also think I'd rather do the crazier places while I'm younger. It's about the adventure, you know?”
A visit to a rodeo in New Mexico was also among their favorite stops. After catching their breath, Rowe and her traveling companions went backpacking in South America.
“We went backpacking for three months around Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia,” Rowe said. “Machu Picchu was amazing. We did a trek there to get to Machu Picchu. It was fantastic.
“The lost city in Colombia. That’s another four-day freaking awful trek. It’s beautiful, but it’s hot and sweaty, and there’s dorm rooms. There’s no other accommodation to get there. It’s two days in the jungle, two days out. Love that! I like the challenging ones, but I go for natural beauty. For me it’s about enjoying the way.”
When traveling on land, even when they weren’t on foot, they were still roughing it a bit.
“We had bought a van that was all done up,” Rowe said. “It’s really nice. It has a bed and an area we can cook in if we have to. We slept in the van a few times or about 20 nights of one trip.”
Whether it’s underground churches in Ethiopia or national parks in the U.S., Rowe has created a lifetime of memories in what she has seen in a few short years, but they’re not done yet.
“We’ve been enjoying travelling around a lot, and we’re going to meet some friends for a month in Indonesia in a couple of weeks,” Rowe said. “We’re going to help them sail around the Indonesian islands on their way to Thailand. It’s only a little bit of sailing.
“We’re still traveling. We’ve got the van. We’ll go to the Alps in January. We want to drive to Greece and the northern part of Greece. There are these monasteries in the hills. We want to go check those out and come back via Eastern Europe.
“I haven’t been to South Africa yet. We also have never been to Australia and New Zealand, on purpose because everybody speaks English there, and everybody is fairly sensible. There’s law and order. I know there are lots of adventurous things to do there if you’re fit and young, but I also think I’d rather do the crazier places while I’m younger. It’s about the adventure, you know?”
