Atlanta Travel Guide
For details of what to do and see in Atlanta check out our Atlanta guide to car hire in Atlanta.
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In spite of its historical significance as one of the most important cities in the south east of the USA, and as the state capital of Georgia, Atlanta remained relatively unknown to the rest of the world until the city was selected as the host of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. Since then, with its raised international profile, visitor numbers to the city have boomed, and along with them, the number of attractions available to entertain them whilst there.
Atlanta is a vital hub both for transport, and commerce in America, the city is the spiritual home of two of the best known companies in the world - Delta Airlines, and Coca Cola.
A modern city, with a glittering high rise down town area, where a number of skyscrapers reach upwards optimistically, you are never far from a place where good old fashioned southern charm and hospitality are still vital to day to day living. Where not far away from the futuristic mirrored façade of corporate Atlanta, the past can be seen poking through to the surface, nowhere more obviously than in the overgrown colonial style plantation houses around the nearby city of Savannah, which provide a major attraction for visitors wanting to make a self drive tour of the region. Around 15 Miles to the west of Atlanta, you can visit the confederate answer to Mount Rushmore, The Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial, where the likenesses of the instigators of the civil war are carved 30m high in the granite cliff face. And no visit could be complete without a trip to the Six Flags over Georgia theme park not far from the city.
Atlanta itself offers excellent shopping - particularly in the Underground City, vibrant nightlife, several world class museums, and of course, Sweet Auburn: once the black ghetto of Atlanta. Several blocks of the neighbourhood have been set aside to remember the city's most famous sun as the Martin Luther King Jr Historic Site. The attractions that people come to visit include his birthplace, and tomb as well as the Ebenezer Baptist Church where he preached.
The many attractions, and a superb year round climate combine to make Atlanta a great choice either as a stop over on the way to another destination such as Los Angeles or Miami with Delta Airlines, or as the gateway to the Deep South, and a place from where you can explore America's historic heart.
