Some Travelers Look for Museums or Beaches. Others Just Want a Pickleball Court

This isn’t only a tongue twister but now a mantra of a surge of Americans who are vacationing where they can also enjoy the wildly popular sport.

Tour companies catering to “picklers" have sprung up and are organizing pickleball-focused trips to other countries. Resorts and hotels are serving up amenities around the sport— “pickleball and pinot" anyone? And a number of pickleball-crazed travelers are making decisions about where to stay and where to visit based on court availability.

Michele Dowty’s 10-year-old son, Jett Barber, is the household’s primary pickleballer. He’s serious enough about the sport that the family’s days of traveling to Costa Rica are done for now.

“We’re now looking for pickleball courts, instead of monkeys and beaches," she says.

Pickleball, a hybrid of tennis, ping pong and badminton, is America’s fastest-growing sport, with about 8.9 million players in the U.S. in 2022, an 86% increase from the year prior, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. Hotels and resorts make up a small but fast-growing percentage of the more than 11,000 venues registered with USA Pickleball, a spokesman says.

Margaritaville, which operates resorts, is the title sponsor for Major League Pickleball, and plans to have at least one court at each of its properties. The cruise company Holland America Line sponsors the Professional Pickleball Association, and has at least one outdoor court on each of its ships.

The Hilton Doubletree Sonoma in California’s wine country for years featured tennis and basketball courts. In 2022, a corporate travel agent asked if staff could temporarily convert tennis courts into pickleball courts for a group, says general manager Brian Marchi.

The hotel agreed, and found itself fielding similar requests later in the year. Hotel managers saw an opportunity to make pickleball part of the resort experience, and scrapped the tennis and basketball courts and instead created eight pickleball courts that opened last month.

Locals can reserve courts for $10 to $12 for a two-hour period, and the hotel hosted a “pickleball and pinot" event for a private group a few weeks ago.

“We know that it’ll bring dollar amounts; what we don’t know is exactly how much it could be," Marchi says of the pickleball pursuits.

In West Hollywood, Calif., the Kimpton La Peer opened a disco-themed pickleball court on its rooftop this month. During the week, the hotel charges $150 for two people for 90 minutes, which includes lunch and a bottle of wine or cocktails. During “Disco Court Hours" on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, there are no reservations or court fees and a DJ plays under a disco ball.

The tennis facility at the Phoenician, a resort in Scottsdale, Ariz., is five years old. Had the directors anticipated the pickleball craze brought on by the pandemic, they would have included more pickleball courts from the get-go, they say.

Pickleball requests by corporate groups have increased exponentially over the past couple of years, says Andrew Seidenberg, the resort’s head pickleball pro.

It has two pickleball courts and plans to add two more this year. Younger players are now requesting lessons. Previously, the average age for lessons was 60, but it is now 45, Seidenberg says.

Dowty’s 10-year-old son has gone all-in on pickleball since he started playing less than a year ago. She drives him more than 90 miles from Bullhead City, Ariz., to Las Vegas every weekend for lessons with a pickleball pro. The pair don’t plan to take any time off from pickleball when they go on vacation.

They took a Royal Caribbean cruise and played pickleball on the ship, and will travel to Hot Springs, Ark., this summer. They have never been, but chose the spot partly because of the many pickleball courts there.

For years, Franklin Paisley thought pickleball was “a stupid game with a stupid name." The 42-year-old criminal-defense lawyer from Lexington, Ky., teased his mom about her pickleball habit, but eventually joined her for a game when his gym shut down during the pandemic.

Now, Paisley works pickleball into every trip he takes. He will visit Ennis, Mont., this summer for a fishing trip, and plans to stop by local courts between 8 and 9 a.m.

Incorporating pickleball into vacation beats the hotel gym, and even his local gym. “They don’t see me very often," he says.

Dekel Bar is a professional pickleball player and co-owns Pickleball Getaways, which offers all-inclusive vacations with pickleball instruction. Mexico is the most popular trip, which costs about $2,000 for the week and includes morning clinics arranged by skill level and afternoon open-play sessions.

Cruise lines including Carnival and Royal Caribbean have pickleball tournaments on board. Holland America offers beginner classes on all its ships and allows guests to reserve courts for matches with players of similar skills, says Dario Tehrani, a sports director. Pickleball is the most popular sport on the ship, followed by Tai Chi, he says.

Having a private court makes a difference for new players, says Shannon Bishop, a 51-year-old court reporter who began her pickleball career about a year and a half ago. At public courts, some locals can be too competitive or impatient as newbies learn the rules.

Bishop, who lives in Jacksonville, Fla., books RV campsites based on whether they have pickleball courts nearby.

She recently booked a short-term rental in Kingsburg, Calif., specifically for its pickleball court. Although she and her husband were the only players, she was determined to get family members, including her father and his wife, on the court. Before they arrived, the area flooded and water came up against the property’s retention wall.

When Bishop learned of this, she says she asked one critical question of the property owner: Is the pickleball court OK?

It was.