Every city has its unique restaurants, tourist attractions, landmarks, and fun and games. But what experiences can you have in Atlanta that would be largely unique to the metro area? To get those answers, we reached out to some of our readers. Here’s the top 8 unique Atlanta experiences.
1. Take a spa day at Jeju Sauna & House of Well-Being
To get an authentic taste of a Korean spa, you need to go no farther than Duluth. Customers can relax in a jade-lined detox room, take a dip in a cold pool after a vigorous workout, relax in a infrared light room, and get foot massages, body massages or even acupuncture. At the end of the day, stop by the food court for a bowl of Ramen noodles or beef ribs. So unique, the 35k SF facility was even featured on Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre America, where he called it a great place to “get a good scrub and a bowl of hot, fermented vegetable soup.”
2. Catch a flick at the Starlight Drive-in
The only drive-in theater left in Atlanta, Starlight also got a massive digital upgrade a few years ago, making the viewing experience all the better—from the comfort of your own car.
3. Trick your taste buds at Three Sheets
Rewire your palate with a small berry called the Miracle Fruit at this popular Sandy Springs eatery. The first Wednesday of every month, Three Sheets hosts a Flavor Tripping event where guests coat their tongues with the juice of the berry, and then go on to savor foods whose traditional flavors get topsy-turvy. Raw lemons become lemonade. Cheese becomes cheesecake. Guinness and lemon sorbet becomes a chocolate milkshake. But you gotta buy your tickets ahead.
4. See tennis pros in action under the Atlanta skyline.
The BB&T Open has quickly grown to become one of the most popular professional tennis venues in the Southeast. And where else can you see court stars like John Isner, Jack Sock and Vasek Pospisil with the Atlantic Station towers looming overhead?
5. Lead a gospel choir singing Let’s Go Crazy by Prince
Sister Louisa’s Church of the Living Room & Ping Pong Emporium is a take on old school gospel churches and ironically is just a block away from the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church. Wear choir robes while performing church organ karaoke. Show off your slick wrists during the bar’s weekly ping pong tourneys. Or just grab a drink and then confess your sins in its confessional booth.
6. Spend an afternoon strolling The Beltline
Every city has some unique public space that it calls its own. New York has Central Park. Beverly Hills has Rodeo Drive. London has Piccadilly Circus. But for years, the nearest Atlanta could claim to a unique feature was Stone Mountain or maybe Piedmont Park. The massive transformation of Midtown has changed all that thanks to the rapid development of the Beltline walking trail. And today, you can not only walk the urban pathway, but dine and shop at Ponce City Market and other destinations along its route.
7. Survive an hour in a zombie apocalypse
Housed inside the Kessler CityLofts building near Underground Atlanta is a facility where you can actually try to survive a zombie apocalypse. Called Paranoia Quest, the gaming facility’s Dmitry Mikhaylov tells us it’s a parallel world where players can compete in different scenarios—breaking into a secured lab to cure a zombie contagion, breaking into a secured government facility to divulge its secrets, solve a murder in Agatha Christie fashion, or surviving a full-on zombie assault, complete with a cast of live-action zombies craving your brains.
8. Live your teen speed freak fantasy
Get a taste of what it’s like to break typical speed limit laws while driving a Porsche 911 at the luxury automakers US HQ. Aside from having both off-road and road tracks to test drive actual Porsche vehicles at its experience center, the company also offers guests a chance to drive in its VR track, where speeds simulate racing at more than 100mph.
