Atlanta in Georgia is famous for the Coca Cola Center, the huge Georgia Aquarium, the Martin Luther King Center for Human Rights, the enourmus Delta Airplane Museum, the CNN Center, the Centennial Olympic Park and a plethora of other things to do!
Atlanta is also home to a number of great restaurants and bars as well as the Mercedes Stadium plus the World Congress Center if you are in town for business.
This itinerary is pretty full and I would recommend at least a week in Atlanta to do it all with the regular excursions outside of Atlanta included!
The Downtown Atlanta area has a large number of shops as well, and the outlying suburban developments are home to many large malls and famous diners like the Colonnade, Mary Mac’s or the Barbecue Grill.
Visiting Atlanta in Georgia
I’ve been to Atlanta in Georgia twice now, so I would like to share with you my experience and the things you can do while visiting this great city.
The first time I visited Atlanta was in 2018 for the International Poultry Processing Expo in January and then I came back again a year later to catch up with my clients again.
On the first occasion I flew to Atlanta direct on a Delta flight from London and then returned on a Virgin flight via Orlando in Florida. I would not recommend flying this way because having to change is inconvenient and it doesn’t really save you that much money in the end.
Both times I visited Atlanta I took a few days off before and after the IPPE congress to check out the city of Atlanta and the neighbouring areas.
Car Rental in Atlanta, GA
For this I obviously needed a car to be able to squeeze as much into my visit as possible. Atlanta has a great public transport system but being so spread out you would spend at least twice as long tracking across Atlanta by train and bus!
So to save time and to be able to see as much as possible I rented a car both times.
During my first visit I took the train to downtown Atlanta for the first night, and stayed at a motel on Pine Street. In all honesty this was probably the worst motel I could have chosen, but I needed somewhere central and during the poultry congress this was the most affordable.
You can read a separate review and watch a video about my stay at the Budgetel Inn in Atlanta, but if you can afford something better than please do stay elsewhere!
Anyhow, I stayed at the Budgetel Inn for the first night then early in the morning I picked up the car from the airport and drove to my first stop, the Barbecue Grill near the airport.
The Stern’s Food Guide
I was using my food guide by the Stern family which comes in very handy every time I visit the USA. The book is titled Road Food by Jane and Michael Stern and they describe many of the best hidden restaurants and diners in ever town of the USA.
The Stern couple recommended the Barbecue Grill for breakfast, so off I was to get my scrambled eggs and sweet Georgia tea here. I wrote a separate review about the three best diners I would recommend in Atlanta, so I am not going to go into too much detail here. Suffice it to say, I would definitely pay a visit here if you are into local Georgia cuisine.
The Delta Airlines Museum
After the breakfast I headed over to the Delta Airlines Museum just round the corner.
Delta was one of the first US airlines to operate commercial flights out of Atlanta and over the years they grew into what they are today. Thanks to them Atlanta has become the busiest airport in North America with 80 million passengers a year!
So to celebrate their success and to remember the many people that helped build the company they opened a museum in one of the old hangars near the airport. It is pretty fascinating to walk around the hangar and to check out some of the huge old airliners that operated during the past century.
You can even sit inside a life-size 747 and try your hand at many things in the interactive exhibitions. If you can afford, you can even pay to drive the flight simulator, which I was lucky enough to do as the guard on site allowed me to sit in for five minutes for free!
The museum is open from Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday: 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m. and on Sunday from noon to 4PM.
According to the Delta Flight Museum website, “the Delta Flight Museum is inside Delta’s original 1940s-era aircraft hangars in Atlanta. The hangars became the Delta Air Transport Heritage Museum and restoration facility for Delta’s first 21‐passenger Douglas DC‐3 plane in 1995. In 2011, they designated the attraction a Historic Aerospace Site.
I spent about two hours here after which I drove out to the old Waffle House Museum site. Unfortunately the museum building was closed permanently when I was there but if you want to see where the first Waffle House stood then drive out to 2719 East College Avenue, Avondale Estates, Georgia!
I was hoping to have lunch by the Waffle House but in the end I drove all the way to the Colonnade Restaurant up north.
Colonnade Restaurant, Atlanta
The Colonnade is a traditional diner with a large menu focusing on poultry and various meat delicacies so if you are into that then make the effort and drive here.
I picked their fried chicken liver – but again please check out my separate post about the three best diners in Atlanta for details!
After the Colonnade I drove into downtown Atlanta and parked up near the Coca Cola Center by the Olympic State Park.
The Coca Cola Center in Atlanta
The Coca Cola Center is HUGE! I spent nearly three hours wondering the exhibition halls and watching the various educational videos and old advertisements!
It is quite fascinating how one brand like the Coca Cola has become so large and global, yet until about two years ago I had no idea the headquarters were in Atlanta! In fact, they store the special secret recipe here so if you want it you will need to break into the museum to get it!
First the tour guide will tell you about the history of Coca Cola, then he will let you discover the place for yourself but not before you watch a video about the corporation! They built an entire multiplex cinema inside the museum with comfy chairs for this!
After the multiplex I went to discover the manufacturing line, the vaults, the shops and carts and everything else after which I went to see the 4-D movie about Coca Cola!
It was a fun-filled afternoon and I was pretty exhausted I must admit, so I went back to the motel for a shower and to relax a bit. The only positive in the Budgetel Inn in Atlanta was the free parking – otherwise it is pretty expensive to park in downtown Atlanta. An overnight stay cost me $20 and an all day pass is $25 in the cheapest lots.
The Mary Mac’s Diner
By the time I was ready to leave the motel it was time to return the car as I only had it for the one day. I drove back to the Airport and then took the train back into town to have dinner at the Mary Mac’s on Ponce de Leon Boulevard.
Mary Mac’s was my absolute favourite while in Atlanta: the chicken wings were great, the iced tea and lemonade were mouth-watering and the Mac & Cheese out of this world! I finished off with a peach slice and cream and walked back to the Motel past some shady figures then passed out for the night!
The next day on Monday morning I walked to the Congress Center to pick up my press pass then crossed the street to get some food at the CNN Center.
The CNN Center in Atlanta
The CNN Center is the headquarters of the CNN as well as a huge food court with at least 50 different fast food places! The building used to be a massive shopping center for families but it failed and then Ted Turner bought it to turn it into his Cable News Network HQ.
I actually know where Ted Turner lives – that’s because I used to post him a magazine where I was an intern filling up envelopes!
I ended up eating at the Chick-fil-A, then went on a VIP tour of CNN center. The VIP Tour at the CNN Center takes you to the studios and you can see how everything is recorded and operated live. It cost me $35 but I really enjoyed it all, although I’ve seen real life studios before.
The most interesting was the fact that the escalator taking us up to the studios is the longest free-hanging escalator in the world! It took over a minute to reach the top!
The tour took about an hour and a half then I went for a walk around downtown Atlanta, looking for a watering hole.
Ted Turner’s Montana Grill
I ended up visiting Ted Turner’s restaurant, called Ted’s Montana Grill for a drink and also a burger as I was already getting a bit hungry by then! Ted Turner owns the largest bison herd in the US and about two million acres of land, so if you eat here chances are it’s home grown meat!
I must say the bison burger was pretty amazing and the fries tasted great too with the ketchup and salt. I went back another couple of times that year in 2018 and then again in 2019
Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta
One night the conference organizers gave us free tickets to the Georgia Aquarium which is just massive! It has various aquariums, the largest of which holds four sharks and hundreds of other sea creatures! It was fascinating to sit in front of the large glass screen and watch this fish swim back and forth like it was a cinema.
Fortunately I did not need to pay for the ticket, but having seen it I would definitely recommend it as the memories of it will stay with me forever!
The rest of the week I was working and attending client meetings so I had little time to do anything else to be honest. On Thursday I then headed out to the airport, but in the end I returned in 2019!
Visiting Atlanta for the Second Time
I came back to the poultry congress again in 2019 but this time I decided to stay a little longer and attach a short trip to Savannah for the weekend.
I flew out of London on a British Airways flights directly to Atlanta and back again on a direct flight. I learned my mistakes the previous year and I wasn’t willing to fly with a change-over again.
The flight was pretty uneventful, but you can read about it in a separate review if you are interested.
On my second visit to Atlanta I picked up the car as soon as I arrived which was a bit of a mistake in retrospect as it then spent the night in a car park for $20!
Parking in Atlanta, GA
Looking back I could have saved nearly $50 on parking if I had planned it a bit better but hey, you can now learn from my mistakes!
My advice would be to find a motel or hotel with free parking in central Atlanta, or one that is affordable, otherwise you might as well pick up the car only for the days you need it. I could have simply gone to the airport to pick up the car in the morning, saving myself some money, but I guess now it’s too late to worry about it!
In the end I wasted a huge amount of time looking for parking, hoping I would find something cheap, but then I gave up and paid the $20 for the overnight spot.
This time I stayed at an Airbnb on Peachtree Street, which is right across the Hyatt Regency in downtown Atlanta.
I was much luckier with the accommodation this time than in 2018 – the apartment was on the 17th floor of a condominium block, overlooking the Atlanta skyline. I really enjoyed the view and how quiet it was – I would definitely recommend the place to stay.
The only downside was that it did not come with parking! Anyway, in the morning I hopped into the car and went off to Athens, which is the starting point of the Antebellum Trail.
I have written a separate post about the Antebellum Trail and what I did during my day driving on it, so please check it out if you are interested.
In the end I spent all day on the Antebellum Trail and returned to Atlanta late in the evening. I parked the car up again and shelled out $30 for an overnight and a day extension! I was very annoyed about this because it nearly doubled my car rental costs!
The next day I had to do some work and pick up my pass again but in the afternoon I managed to fit in some driving around Atlanta to discover the neighbourhoods.
Martin Luther King Memorial
I visited the Martin Luther King Memorial Center where there is an exhibition about King’s life and the civil rights movement.
If you don’t have the time to come here (but you should) then it might be enough to walk around downtown Atlanta and reading about the civil rights movement on the interpretive signs. It was quite fascinating to learn how hard he had to work to achieve what he did – and then to be shot for it by a crazy idiot!
Although the neighbourhood where the Martin Luther King Memorial Center is located looks a bit shoddy you shouldn’t worry too much and go for a walk. The area is called the “Sweet Auburn” district, which is where the black neighbourhood used to be in Atlanta.
Here you can find traditional architecture and visit the old Main Street which is now cut in half by the Interstate.
If you don’t feel like walking you can also take the street car and hop on and off but you should seriously just get out and take the scenery in. I really enjoyed my time there and ended up having some food at the Sweet Auburn Food Hall by the interstate.
Prince Hall Masonic Center
I also discovered the local Prince Hall Masonic Center where I learned that King’s father and grandfather were both freemasons and he was getting ready for his initiation before he got shot!
The USA’s first black operated radio station is also found here, at the ground floor of the Prince Hall Masonic center. In fact, King’s office was just across the hall from the radio station, right inside the Freemason’s Hall!
Unfortunately the radio station was closed when I visited but I could peak in through the large glass windows and check out the furniture.
The rest of the evening I decided to go to the local gym which was by the interstate near Adamsville.
Atlanta operates several government recreation centers and there is one in Auburn and another near Adamsville. I read that the swimming pool was bigger in Adamsville so I decided to drive out there and then drop the car off after the swim.
I ended up spending nearly three hours at the gym and swimming pool! I did my usual 1.2K swim then I heard some music coming out of the studio so I went to check out what was going on. It turned out it was the local KTX class which is a very tough cycling exercise.
In the end I joined the class for the evening and did a massive cycle with the others! It was absolute madness and I was sweating like crazy – I will probably never forget it to be honest!
The rest of the week I was working like crazy at the poultry congress and had dinner a couple of times at Ted’s Montana Grill, Mary Mac’s and breakfast a couple of times at the Waffle House downtown.
MLK Recreation Center, Atlanta
I also visited the Martin Luther King Recreation center in Sweet Auburn then on Thursday I picked up the second car and headed out to the Jarrell Plantation and Savannah.
I have written a separate post about Savannah and the drive there, so I won’t go into too much detail about it here.
You are better off just reading the post separately and letting me know what you thought in the comments section!
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