17 destinations and counting

By the time Patty Peavler has finished listing the countries she’s traveled to, it’s hard to keep them straight.

Alaska? No, Austria. Wait, both? Liechtenstein is big enough to be a country? And Iceland is the one not actually covered in ice, right?

If you can keep up, 17 or so destinations later, Peavler ends with “and I’ve been to Europe 21 different times.”

Travel nut, you think. This woman must excitedly carve out months at a time to leave behind her quiet Montrose Park home and jet off to fabulous places.

That’s where you’d be wrong. As much as she loves leading trips with Premier Members, the Farmers Bank travel club, the bank’s vice president of marketing is just as happy piddling around the capital city with her grandchildren, arranging flowers from her garden or serving First Christian Church. The travel just happens to be a very enjoyable job perk.

Born and raised in Frankfort, Peavler wasn’t always a traveler. In fact, she stayed local every chance she got. After graduating from Franklin County High School, she attended Kentucky State University where she received an undergraduate degree in history and a master’s in public affairs.

With two degrees in hand, Peavler started Capital Florists with Jack Perkins and arranged flowers for “three or four years” before deciding she wanted a job at Farmers Bank.

“Working for yourself is hard. I just sort of thought it was the right time to try something new.”

Peavler was hired in 1983 and has worked at Farmers since as part of the loan department, assistant vice president of marketing and finally VP of marketing.

As a young bank employee, Peavler’s first interaction with the travel club came through Mildred Browning, former vice president of marketing at the bank and club pioneer. Browning was the first to lead travel groups after Farmers learned of a bank in Texas, which had started a similar program.

“The bank here was able to mold their own group called Capital First Ladies, with Mildred as the director, and she planned just wonderful, marvelous trips for us,” recalled Peavler. Women (and now men, too) who were bank members could sign up to go with a group to any number of exotic locales, several times a year.

“It was a way for ladies who were members of the bank, but were maybe without a husband, to travel. Back then, two women wouldn’t even have thought of traveling to another country by themselves – probably not even to Cincinnati by themselves. So, it worked very well.”

According to Peavler, group travel has always been one of the most effective ways to see the world. Transportation, lodging and schedules are all planned and a local group sends you on your way with friends.

Also, being aware of financial considerations ahead of time – like meal costs and admissions fees – and having safety in numbers make group travel appealing to many.

Peavler took over as club director when she assumed the position as vice president of marketing nearly 16 years ago, and with close to 15 years of experience as a group traveler and 15 as a travel leader, her stories are endless and intertwined.

In one long breath, Peavler sang the praises of three different countries.

“I love Ireland,” she started. “I think its natural beauty is wonderful and the people are delightful, and by the way I have a trip going there in November that I still need four people for. But I think it’s a really good place to start your international travel because language isn’t a problem and they have a good opinion of the United States.”

“But, I will have to say that I was very intrigued by Iceland,” she continued. “It’s only five hours from Boston by plane. It’s interesting because when you go there, there aren’t very many trees because the Vikings had to use the trees for their ships, so they cut them all down. And even though the Icelandic language is just unpronounceable to me, you can speak English and they’ll speak it right back. They also have Kentucky Rebel barbecue sauce. And of course the geysers.”

And just for good measure, Peavler ended the breath with a shout-out to Peru. “Also really beautiful is Peru. Machu Picchu is very atmospheric, very beautiful. It was quite evident that people lived there and took care of it for a long time.”

And Peavler has just as much to say about Alaska, Canada, the Caribbean, Hawaii, Russia, Holland, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria, Liechtenstein, Malta and Egypt.

Alaska prompts her to throw her head back in bliss as she recalls its beauty.

“I saw 12 bald eagles in one tree,” she exclaims. “One tree!”

And Russia, she says, may have been the most surprising place to visit.

“The have a museum there called The Hermitage that rivals the Louvre in the quality of art they have and it’s natural beauty.”

And the best place in the world to visit?

“Oh, I’ve been trying to think of that,” Peavler said. “But honestly, there are so many best places in the world.”

“I think of it like this: When I’m going someplace, I always pray, ‘Lord, show me what you want me to learn.’ Because if you go without an eye toward learning what that country is like and what the people are like, I think you’ve missed a lot of it. So it makes every place enjoyable.”

In the future, Peavler would like to visit Asia – particularly Easter Island and the Galapagos Islands – and South Africa.

“There really isn’t any place that’s not beautiful,” she said. “But it’s nice to see the rest of the world knowing I get to come back to Frankfort.