Elizabeth Higginbottom

I'm the director of Pickleball in Paradise, a division of Straight Away Travel. We send groups to mainly the Caribbean, but we're branching out to river cruises in Europe as well. We send coaches with them, and they go for clinics in the morning, and then the afternoon is free to enjoy the resort. These people usually want connection and activity and something truly memorable, so we provide group activities in the afternoon if they choose to do them. The owner of the travel agency discovered pickleball during COVID because it was something she could do outdoors and interact, and she immediately thought this is a niche to develop. I was a program manager for a pickleball center at a private country club, and my members wanted a pickleball destination vacation, so my husband Jason and I researched where to go, and we found Straight Away Travel. Once Barb and I met, we clicked both personally and business, and she hired me as the director. At the time, she only had like 3 trips a year, and I've exploded it into about 25 trips a year. I retired from my original career in banking, and my husband and I spent years traveling the country in our RV, and we learned pickleball along the way. I also volunteered for the Pickleball Hall of Fame. I joined in its inaugural year, was on the nominating committee, was later elected to the chair of the nominating committee, and eventually was invited to serve on the board. I started this second career, and I'm 100% involved in everything from client emails to planning. My goal is if anyone emails me within normal business hours, to email them back within an hour, but most of the time it's within 10 minutes because I know I wouldn't like to wait for an answer to something when I'm so excited about that trip.