Free Atlanta
July 26, 2010 8:37 AM   Subscribe

What can we do in Atlanta, GA that's free and college student friendly on the weekend?

A few of my friends and I will be in Atlanta this weekend. We're driving up from Tallahassee, FL- we'll probably be there by noon on Saturday and will be leaving around 5 on Sunday. We're staying around the area of the airport. 2 of us will be at the Georgia Dome on Saturday night from 7ish on while the others will stay at the hotel.

We're having a hard time finding anything free that isn't targeted at families with little kids or happens at night- my Google searches have come up with nothing but weekday events and parks. We'll definitely be at Atlantic Station at some point to go to the IKEA, but I don't know what else there would be to do there. We were thinking about going to Centennial Park and walking around a bit/seeing the fountain of rings show, but other than that I'm stumped.
posted by kro to Travel & Transportation around Atlanta, GA (10 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Have a browse through the event listings at Creative Loafing or Access Atlanta.
posted by ob1quixote at 9:14 AM on July 26, 2010 [1 favorite]


Best answer: I would suggest the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site/MLK Center.

If I didn't have much time, honestly, I would just walk around parts of the city like Five Points, Underground Atlanta (Bennett Street if you like art), Oakland Cemetary, etc
posted by KogeLiz at 9:24 AM on July 26, 2010 [1 favorite]


Poke around Little Five Points and Virginia Highlands. Don't bother with Underground Atlanta.
posted by spilon at 9:34 AM on July 26, 2010


I second the Loaf and Access Atlanta option. I can think of things you could do in Atlanta that would be cheap, but not necessarily free. F'r example, the Star Bar in L5P has amateur stand-up (nascent comedians welcome!) on Mondays for free, a dance night on Tuesdays also free and you can see a trio of local bands free on Thursdays as well.
posted by Kitteh at 9:55 AM on July 26, 2010


Piedmont Park!
There are free movies in the summer on parks and such if you look it up :)
There's more to Atlantic Station than IKEA.. really nice to just wander around, and a middle area with an arc di triumph looking thing.
posted by picarosado at 10:59 AM on July 26, 2010


Ride the elevator to the top of the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel. It rotates.

There's also the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield, a very well preserved Civil War battlefield about a half hour north of Atlanta.
posted by Mercaptan at 1:42 PM on July 26, 2010


Atlantic Station is basically for people who love the priciest shopping mall in town so much they wish they could live there. There's only one good reason I can think of to go there - they have free movies in a little park area every Thursday night, and I've had a great time attending some of those. Other than that, there's no "there" there (with apologies to Gertrude Stein)

The same goes for Underground Atlanta - it's a gigantic tourist trap designed to separate you from your money as quickly as possible before sending you on your way with an empty feeling. NO ONE that lives here ever goes there except if they work in the tourist-fleecing industry.

On the other hand, kicking around Piedmont Park for a while would be rather nice. As others have said upthread, visiting the MLK Center is a great way to spend an afternoon.
posted by deadmessenger at 1:51 PM on July 26, 2010 [1 favorite]


Deadmessenger: Funny that you mention "kicking around Piedmont Park"...

Southeast Kickball Fest 2010 is going on this weekend, starting Friday and running through Sunday. 128 teams will duke it out on fields in Piedmont Park and Georgia Tech (which is just south of Atlantic Station). DJ's spinning music, and various parties going on. It's free to view, and should be a rocking time.
posted by Mercaptan at 2:18 PM on July 26, 2010


Check out AtlantaOnTheCheap.com.
posted by mdiskin at 6:18 PM on July 26, 2010


Response by poster: Thanks everyone! Best answer marked because I honestly had never heard of the MLK Center and it's looking like our best contender right now.

We're actually looking at going to see the Bodies exhibition now that I remembered it was in Atlanta (we're all science ed majors=nerds) but don't know if that would be financially feasible for our entire group...we'll see.
posted by kro at 10:07 PM on July 28, 2010


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