3 Day Trip to Atlanta, Georgia

Highlights from our family trip to Atlanta, Georgia in June 2025.

Ponce City Market & Beltline

This historic renovated Sears building now provides an enjoyable mix of dining and shopping in a lively setting. The Beltline's scenic trails offer beautiful views and peaceful walks in nature.

• Bites:

  • Boom Boom Bao - Pork bao bun

  • Minero - Queso, Elote, & Catfish Tacos

Atlanta Braves Game at Truist Park

We caught an Atlanta Braves VS Boston Red Sox game at Truist Park. It was a great deal - 3 tickets, parking, and a bag of peanuts for under $100! Not a bad seat in the stadium. We liked the Monument Garden with tributes to Braves players like Hank Aaron and Coca Cola Corner. The area surrounding the park is known as The Battery with lively food and music.

Atlanta Botanical Garden

Beautiful gardens! We enjoyed roaming the grounds and admiring the trees, sculptures, flowers, paths, greenhouses, and water features.

Alice's Wonderland - 38 mosaiculture sculptures inspired by Alice in Wonderland

Enchanted Trees by Poetic Kinetics - 10 colorful trees that produce kaleidoscope shadows of dancing light

Enchanted Goddess in the Cascades Garden

World of Coca Cola

Caden's best day. We enjoyed the interactive exhibits and decor that made the visit memorable. After sampling sips of over 100 (seriously!) varieties from all over the world, his favorite is still original Coke. The most memorable flavor was the Sour Plum from China that tastes like a very strong BBQ sauce! If you go, have a tissue ready for the video you watch upon entry. It definitely makes you think, if only for a moment, that maybe all the troubles of the world really could be helped with a cold Coca Cola. A custom etched can was a fun souvenir.

Georgia Aquarium

The biggest aquarium in the United States, with over 500 different species, and 11 million gallons of water did not disappoint! Our favorites were the whale sharks, massive manta rays, sawfish, and sharks. The huge viewing windows, moving tunnel, and interactive exhibits give guests an incredible experience. We saved $10 per ticket by going later in the day and still had plenty of time to see everything.

Centennial Olympic Park

This public park was built for the 1996 Summer Olympics and is located near other attractions we visited that day. We were fortunate to walk past and see the fountains playing with music.

Lodging

We stayed at the modern W-Atlanta Downtown. The corner room with floor to ceiling windows and Davines shower amenities were a special treat. It was in a good location, within walking distance to World of Coca Cola, Georgia Aquarium, and Centennial Olympic Park. We avoided the party crowd and did an early morning swim to have the rooftop pool to ourselves. We would recommend using the hotel's valet parking as a more secure option than the public lots in the area.

Eats

• Local Motives (onsite at our hotel) - Tasty dinner and drink options as well as a good breakfast. We enjoyed pulled pork sliders, three cheese macaroni, a conductor charcuterie plate, and an apple dessert with large glasses of water after all that Coca Cola we drank.

• Persepolis Persian Cuisine - The staff were attentive, welcoming, and took obvious pride in their homemade dishes. We enjoyed learning about the family's hometown of Shiraz, Iran - known for roses. The kabobs were tender and flavorful with accompanying rice, roasted tomatoes, herbs, nuts, hummus, musto-khiar, and crispy bread. Dessert was rose water pistachio ice cream with strawberry sauce.

Three days was just the right amount of time for us to get a taste of Atlanta, Georgia. We have driven through Atlanta a few times and it was nice to get a chance to take a deeper dive into this historic American city.