Jack Rowland, 21; explored the world, found excitement

Jack Rowland traveled to Australia as a teenager.

The zeal for travel may have begun when his father won vacations through work and Jack Rowland, still a toddler, found himself sampling exotic food several time zones from home.

Winchester was where he always returned, but the world was his destination. By the time he died last week at 21, he had visited more than 40 countries on five continents. From Argentina to Australia, Cambodia to China, no nation was too distant or too foreign for Mr. Rowland, who in his wanderings burst joyously free from the sameness of suburban life.

"We had family gatherings around the holidays, and when he could make it, he'd come back, and everybody would be in awe," Marty Rowland said of his son. "He'd give us his itinerary of what he was going to do next, and it would kind of scare us. But he did it, and he loved it, and he never had any trouble. He always found his own way."

Mr. Rowland had been traveling in Southeast Asia since last summer and liked Thailand. To avoid overstaying his visa in that country, he went to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, barely across the border on the other side of the Mekong River. Last Wednesday, he died in Vientiane from a combination of alcohol and drugs, his father said.

The details of Mr. Rowland's death could suggest a recklessness that his father said was never part of the travels. Mr. Rowland, he said, thoroughly researched his journeys. When he took risks, it was to participate in activities such as bungee jumping.

Also, although Mr. Rowland had been treated for depression, his father believes the death was accidental. During a phone conversation the day before Mr. Rowland died, he said, there was no hint of anything amiss.

"He had a very short, 21-year life, and it's very sad for me, but he maxed it out," his father said. "He did what he wanted to do, enjoymentwise, travelwise, adventurewise. He experienced more than many people do in a lifetime."

Even before Mr. Rowland started setting off to distant parts of the world, he had cultivated a palate for spicy foods and a taste for thrills.

In one collection of family photos, "every single picture is excitement," his father said. "Jack 10 feet in the air tubing, water-skiing, snowboarding, skiing. I think there's a gene some people have, an excitement gene. I have that slightly, and Jack had that to the Nth degree."

John Griffin Rowland was born in Brigham and Women's Hospital and lived nearly his entire life in Winchester. As a child, he attended Landmark School in Manchester-by-the-Sea, where he overcame reading difficulties and worked on emotional challenges. By the time he went to Winchester High School, his father said, he was able to read above grade level.

"Things didn't come easy for Jack," he said.

Although Mr. Rowland struggled with depression, his father said, the valleys of sadness were often offset by the peaks of adventure. The photo that accompanies this obituary shows Mr. Rowland in Australia as a teenager, on a trip with other students. Among other photos from the trip is one of a "bridge so high you'd be afraid to walk across it," his father said, "and he bungee-jumped off it."

Growing up in Winchester, Jack Rowland sought friends from different backgrounds. Curiosity about what lay beyond the suburbs led him to design a life that would take him continents away from his father, his mother, Ellie Griffin, and his younger sisters, Catherine and Emily.

"He didn't let his disabilities, if you want to call them disabilities, stop him from exploring," his father said. "Some of these trips he did with friends, and he did some of them himself. He was very curious about life and different cultures."

After graduating from Winchester High School in 2006, Mr. Rowland attended the University of Massachusetts at Boston, where he intended to complete a degree in business. First, however, there were countries to see. Having visited islands in the Caribbean, including a few trips to Jamaica, he spent the summer of 2006 traveling around Europe. Taking time off beginning January 2007, he decided to spend a year traveling in Asia.

The sojourns were not financed by his family.

"He was very entrepreneurial," his father said. "All these trips he paid for himself. He had different businesses, selling cars, delivering pizzas, doing all kinds of things."

In less affluent lands, Mr. Rowland was disturbed by what he saw. At home, he was someone who, upon encountering the homeless on Boston's streets, "would always give them $5," his father said.

In places such as Cambodia, where Mr. Rowland told his family he saw "horrible, horrible, horrible poverty," he gave money away but ached to do more and wished that others would, too.

Marty Rowland said he wanted to talk about his son's life, including how he died, in part to encourage other parents to spend as much time working with their children as the Rowlands did with Jack, and perhaps to go further, an extra hug as a daughter or son departs for a long journey, or one more frank talk about the dangers of drugs in foreign lands.

He also wanted to celebrate what his son achieved in the face of adversity.

"Jack absolutely lived life to the fullest, when he was able to," his father said. "He loved life and was always looking forward to his next adventure."

In addition to his parents and sisters, Mr. Rowland leaves a grandfather, Martin of Point Lookout, N.Y.

A funeral Mass will be said at 10 a.m. today in St. Mary Church in Winchester.