Atlanta Georgia

Atlanta: The City That Burned Down and Kept Going

Atlanta was called “Terminus” when it was founded in 1837 as a railroad junction. It was destroyed during Sherman’s March to the Sea in 1864 – largely burned to the ground, then rebuilt from the ashes with the kind of momentum that gives a city a particular character. The locals have a word for it: resurgent, though they would not use that word. They would say the city is too busy to hate, which is the old Chamber of Commerce slogan that stuck because it said something real. Atlanta is the capital of the American South, the headquarters of companies from CNN to Coca-Cola, and the city that produced Martin Luther King Jr. The combination of those things in one place makes it more interesting than most US cities of comparable size.

Civil Rights History

The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in the Sweet Auburn neighbourhood is the most important site in the city. It includes Dr. King’s boyhood home, the Ebenezer Baptist Church where three generations of the King family preached, the Reflecting Pool, and the King Center. This is not an optional stop for anyone with any interest in 20th-century American history. Walk the neighbourhood, read the plaques, take your time.

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights, near Centennial Olympic Park, connects the American Civil Rights Movement to contemporary human rights struggles globally through photography, documentary material, and interactive exhibits. The audio recording of a Nashville lunch counter sit-in that visitors can experience recreated is one of the most affecting museum moments in any American city.

Sweet Auburn was once called “the richest Negro street in the world” during the era of segregation – a concentrated district of African American business and cultural life that sustained a community excluded from white commerce. The Auburn Avenue Research Library and the surrounding streets tell that history.

The BeltLine

The Atlanta BeltLine is a 22-mile trail system built on historic railroad corridors connecting 45 neighbourhoods. It is the largest urban redevelopment project in the United States by some measures and the best way to see Atlanta like someone who lives there. Walk it, rent a bicycle on it, or take the Streetcar in the Eastside section. The Ponce City Market, a converted Sears Roebuck building on the Eastside Trail, has one of the best food hall concentrations in the South.

Food

Atlanta’s food culture is built on African American culinary tradition expressed through soul food: fried chicken, collard greens, mac and cheese, cornbread, sweet potato pie. These dishes are available everywhere and the quality gap between a serious fried chicken restaurant and a tourist version is substantial. The Colonnade, a classic Atlanta institution on Cheshire Bridge Road, has been serving this food since 1927.

Buford Highway, running northeast from the city, is one of the most diverse restaurant corridors in the American South: authentic Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Mexican, Ethiopian, and dozens of other cuisines at neighbourhood prices without tourist markup. If you eat on Buford Highway once, you will not eat at your hotel’s restaurant.

Georgia Aquarium

The Georgia Aquarium holds more water than any other aquarium in the western hemisphere at 10 million gallons and is home to four whale sharks – the only ones in an aquarium outside Asia. The whale shark tank is legitimately jaw-dropping. Whether you think aquariums are appropriate for animals this large is a different conversation, but as a facility and spectacle it is in a category of one in the United States.

Where to Stay

Midtown is the most practical base for visitors: central, walkable, close to the High Museum of Art, Woodruff Arts Center, and the BeltLine eastern section. Virginia-Highland and Inman Park have boutique options for those who want a residential neighbourhood feel. Downtown is convenient for convention attendees and for the civil rights sites.

Atlanta is a sprawling city that does not have great transit coverage between all its interesting parts. MARTA reaches the airport, downtown, Midtown, and some points northeast, but most visitors need a rental car or use rideshare regularly. Factor this in when planning your days.