Pickleball, Purpose & Travel With Heart: How Melinda Alcosser Is Changing Lives Around the World cover art

Pickleball, Purpose & Travel With Heart: How Melinda Alcosser Is Changing Lives Around the World

Pickleball, Purpose & Travel With Heart: How Melinda Alcosser Is Changing Lives Around the World

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 What happens when you combine one of the fastest-growing sports in the world with a deep commitment to community, connection, and conscious travel? You get something unlike anything you've seen before. Today's guest has taken pickleball far beyond the court — into schools in the Dominican Republic and headed all around the world.Melinda helps heart-centered people and communities design travel experiences that support their journey of connecting, honoring, caring for self, one another, and this sacred home we call Earth. From pickleball adventures and women's retreats to regenerative family travel and youth-focused journeys, everything Melinda creates is infused with what she calls "with heart" — the belief that travel, at its best, is an act of love.Guest BioMelinda Alcosser is a travel designer, educator, and the founder of With Heart Travel and the Carpe Dinkum pickleball travel series. With a background spanning 14 years running an experientially-based middle school, humanitarian work, and travel coaching, Melinda brings a rare depth of purpose to everything she creates. She designs immersive group experiences for women, families, and pickleball players of all levels — weaving community giveback, personal growth, and genuine cultural connection into every itinerary. She is also a certified experience designer through the Transformational Travel Council and is building With Heart Incorporated, a nonprofit arm dedicated to making travel accessible to all. When she's not on the road, she's dreaming up the next way pickleball can change a life.Host BioKaren Cleveland is the creator and host of Travel That Touches Your Soul. She is a safari and wildlife tour host, spiritual teacher, and animal communicator devoted to helping people reconnect with what matters most through meaningful travel. Her work centers on connection with animals, land, culture, and inner truth, and the quiet inner knowing that says, this is the kind of life I came here to live.Episode Topics and TimestampsPickleball travel with a purpose — and the photo that says it all (00:00)Welcome and introduction — Karen introduces Melinda Alcosser (00:10)The "with heart" experience — visiting a Dominican Republic school and why it became the trip highlight (01:12)How Melinda's pickleball trips work — all levels welcome, coaches included (07:36)The Dream Team Pickleball Academy in Uganda and the Carpe Dinkum Giving Club (09:00)The origins of pickleball — and why Melinda's husband may have been there at the very beginning (12:00)Three buckets: pickleball travel, women's retreats, and youth & family journeys (18:04)The Transformational Travel Council and why regenerative travel changes everything (19:00)Awaken Your Spirit at Sea — January 2026 aboard the Royal Clipper in the Grenadines (22:00)With Heart Incorporated — Melinda's vision to make travel accessible for everyone (24:04)Where to find Melinda and upcoming trips (24:47)Upcoming Trips🏓 Carpe Dink’em Pickleball in Cancún — December 3–8, 2026 https://all-travel.com/pickelball-cancun-dec-2026/⛵ Awaken Your Spirit at Sea aboard Royal Clipper — January 9–16, 2026 https://app.tern.travel/trips/2559333/landing_page/editWith Heart Travel https://www.withhearttravel.comTravel and Pickleball https://www.travelandpickleball.comJoin our email community to receive notice of upcoming trips, new podcasts, and find out the "Top Travels of 2026 to Soothe Your Soul" https://mailchi.mp/soulful/travels or https://soulful.travelBe sure to Subscribe and review the podcast!Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/travel-that-touches-your-soul/id1865822112 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0IMDYh43NAVhKXXfoUUNls iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1333-travel-that-touches-your-315490361/Facebook: Karen https://www.facebook.com/karentcleveland Travel that Touches Your Soul https://www.facebook.com/RevKarenCleveland/ Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/safarisandsacredjourneys/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@soulfultravelchannel
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