Photos: Jud McCranie (Bubba73) / CC BY-SA 4.0 · Diliff / CC BY-SA 3.0 · Zpb52 / Public domain
Nearly half of these Georgia attractions are in two cities, 14 in Atlanta and eight in Savannah. Some of the rest take ten minutes, like the 56-foot Big Chicken on Cobb Parkway or the oak in Athens that legally owns itself.
45 places · Georgia
Must-seeWhale sharks and manta rays glide through 6.3 million gallons in the Ocean Voyager gallery, the largest single tank in the country. Walk the clear acrylic tunnel and the open ocean is over your head.
Must-seeThe tour ends in the Taste It room, where you can sample more than 60 Coca-Cola products bottled around the world, a few of which will make you wince. The Georgia Aquarium is next door.
Must-seeBuy a ticket to whatever's playing. Built in 1929 as a Shrine temple, the auditorium sits under a painted night sky of 96 crystal stars, and its original pipe organ still rises from the pit before the curtain.
Must-seeSavannah's 22 squares pull you along on foot, one to the next, until you reach the 1858 fountain in Forsyth Park. Go in the late afternoon, when the moss turns gold and the brick sidewalks empty out.
Must-seePeople still leave toys and coins at the iron fence around Little Gracie Watson, the six-year-old whose 1889 statue is the most-visited grave here. Around her are more than a hundred acres of moss-hung oaks on a bluff above the Wilmington River.
Must-seeDr. King's birth home and the Ebenezer Baptist Church sanctuary where he preached sit on the same stretch of Auburn Avenue, close enough to walk between. Ranger tours of the house are free with a same-day reservation.
Must-seePut on the headphones at the 1960s lunch-counter simulation and you hear the jeers and threats the sit-in protesters sat through. Upstairs, the museum turns to human rights struggles still going on around the world.
Must-seeThe Last 100 Yards ramp climbs through eight battles in cast figures and sound, and outside, new soldiers take their oath on Inouye Field over soil gathered from eight battlefields. Admission is free.
Must-seeFrom 1886 the Morgans, Rockefellers, Pulitzers and Vanderbilts wintered behind this turreted clubhouse, and in 1910 a few of them slipped onto the island in secret to draft the plan that became the Federal Reserve. The Queen Anne tower, wraparound verandas and croquet lawn still stand at the heart of a 240-acre National Historic Landmark District you can tour on foot or by trolley. Walk the same riverfront path where AT&T placed the first transcontinental phone call in 1915.
Must-seeEddie Owens Martin, who called himself St. EOM, spent his last three decades building Pasaquan on his late mother's farm 8 miles outside Buena Vista. He took the name after a vision in 1935, while he was living in New York. On seven acres in the Marion County pines he left six structures and more than 900 feet of painted masonry walls, with mandala murals inside. Columbus State University, which has owned it since 2016, opens it Friday through Sunday from 10 to 5 and closes it for all of July and December.
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AttractionsOther lists that cover the same ground.
6 placesNorth Georgia's odd side, for when the waterfalls start to run together.
18 placesMost people know Georgia's state parks by the mountain ones. This list keeps going south almost to the Florida line, and a couple of the best are down there.
17 placesAtlanta's weekend mountains. Come in early spring, when the falls run strongest.