I have been back in the United States for about a week now. Initially, the plan was to just come to Cincinnati, and visit friends and family. However this year, my best friend was unable to come up to Ohio for the holidays. So thanks to a cheap flight I found, we met up in Atlanta for the day! Our day was full of all sorts of fun things to do in Atlanta.
The last time I had really visited Atlanta was over fall break of my sophomore year of college. My friend Elizabeth (who I also got to see) is from Atlanta and we spent several days exploring the city. Being 31 now, that was 12 years ago! It’s crazy how the time flies! This time around, we only had one day in the city. We made the most of it by visiting some key spots in the city!
How we got around
One thing that Atlanta is known for is the traffic. I feel like the city had a huge boom and public transportation didn’t quite catch up at first. One of my biggest critiques of my country is our lack of good public transportation. In Europe, it’s so much easier to live without a car as buses and trains are so much more frequent. I wish the US (outside of New York and Chicago) was more like that!
Atlanta, however, is not the worst when it comes to public transportation. If I was to give the city a grade for its public transportation, it’d probably get a B or a C. We stayed with Kayleigh’s brother Michael in Buckhead and caught the Marta train right into the city center. It was $6 round trip and maybe took 20 minutes.
Stop 1: CNN
I visited CNN when I first came to Atlanta 12 years ago. At the time, I was a wide-eyed journalism student ready to soak everything in. I remember being super excited to tour CNN. This time around, I was almost as excited. I was also curious to see how things had changed.
They don’t allow photography on the majority of the tour, so I only got a few shots here. This was the first part of the tour where they show you how a green screen works. I volunteered to wear green so that I could show everyone why you never wear green on a green screen.
All you can see up there is my head! So next time you watch the weather, check to see if they’re wearing green! I bet they won’t be!
Stop 2: World of Coca-Cola
A trip to Atlanta is not complete without stopping here. Coca-Cola has their headquarters in Atlanta, hence they decided to create a space where people could come and learn about the brand. They have all sorts of fun, interactive exhibits and a room where you can try all different kinds of soft drinks from around the world.
It was definitely interesting to learn about the history of the company. I will admit that I’m not always the biggest fan of the company. I do still drink it from time to time, but they don’t necessarily have a clean slate as far as human rights violations goes. That’s something you can Google if you’d like.
Stop 3: Georgia Aquarium
Next we went over to the aquarium to see some water life. It was right across the way from the World of Coca-Cola, which made it easy to visit both.
I think my favorite part of the aquarium visit was seeing all the dolphins. They have several dolphin shows each day. They do not allow photography or video at the shows, so I don’t have anything to share with you all here. However I do have some other shots I captured.
Stop 4: Center for Civil and Human Rights
This time around, I think I was most excited to visit this museum. I am so glad that this museum exists because these topics are things that everyone needs to learn about. The majority of the exhibits at this museum are about the civil rights movement in the United States. However there also is a section about modern-day human rights, which I also found very interesting.
One of the most interesting and interactive exhibits is the diner counter. During the civil rights movement in the South, young African-Americans sat in segregated diners in protest of the segregation laws. In this exhibit, you sit at a counter and put on headphones. What you hear is what they heard at that time. People are yelling and threatening them. It gives you a different sense of what happened.
After this stop, we were ready to head home. We used the Atlanta CityPass to explore all of these places. The pass does have a fifth stop, but we were tired after exploring these four sites! The CityPass also includes discounts to restaurants and even the MARTA (we saw that one after we bought our round trip tickets haha). It’s definitely worth checking out if you’ll be visiting Atlanta soon.
Have you traveled to Atlanta? Which of these sites would you most like to visit?
My friend and I were provided complimentary Atlanta CityPasses. All opinions are my own.
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