INTERESTING WOMEN
Winter respite
A DES MOINES WOMAN AND HER HUSBAND MAKE A POINT TO MAKE AT LEAST ONE MAJOR TRIP EACH YEAR
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By JENNIFER MILLER
f you ask Vicki Facto what her favorite trip to points afar has been, expect a long pause. You can almost watch the vacation slideshow flash through her brain as she mulls the possibilities. “I just could not pick a most favorite trip.” Pause. “No, I really can’t.” Vicki and Tim Facto have arranged their lives around their travel lust. In each of the 21 years they have been married, they have taken a trip, though only the last seven or eight each have been a whole month. Now, Tim is retired from the railroad, so that’s easy. Vicki, 46, is vice president for commercial real estate lending at Bankers Trust and has to deal with career logistics more. When she started at Banker’s Trust, she told them up front that she’d like to take her vacation in a one-month lump. They agreed. “I’m really lucky,” Facto says, “that they allow me to do that.”
The annual wintertime trips often revolve around two things: warmth and snorkeling. They also enjoy biking and hiking. It follows then that one of the couple’s favorite destinations has been Mexico, though they try to visit someplace different each time. “We’ve traveled on both the Pacific side and the Caribbean side,” Facto says, “and we’ve spent a lot of time on the Yucatan Peninsula. We’ve probably been to Mexico at least 20 times. We really enjoy that culture and especially the Mayan people.” They have also traveled in Central America and Ireland. The Factos are not big on hanging out in cities or resorts, preferring to get more immersed in local culture by staying in small towns. They also leave room for flexibility in their itinerary, starting with a few must-sees or must-dos and going from there. “We pick a few sights and nail down the places that we really need reservations and then loosely plan around those. We don’t usually make a lot of hotel reservations in advance,” Facto says, since they usually
Vicki Facto shows some of the things that help her travel the world. She and her husband, Tim, are working on their next adventure. Photo by Andrea Melendez
10 Des Moines WOMAN | February 2012