Start from 29 curated places around Athens, GA, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Last Resort Grill
Athens' most-decorated local restaurant, in a converted 1940s building on Clayton Street, serving Southwestern-inflected Southern food to a dining room that spans students, faculty, and out-of-town visitors. Shrimp and grits and the clay pot are the anchors; the wine list and desserts are both longer than they need to be.
Cali N Tito's
A Cuban-Peruvian kitchen near Five Points that has been cooking for Athens for nearly two decades out of a colorfully painted house with a sprawling outdoor seating area. The fish tacos and the Cuban sandwich are the reasons people come back; the BYOB policy and the patio are the reasons they stay.
Trails & outdoors
Sandy Creek Lakeside Trail
A 7.3-mile loop around the shores of Lake Chapman in Sandy Creek Park, through mature hardwood forest with repeated lake views and small footbridges over creek fingers. The most-reviewed trail in Athens on AllTrails and consistently the top local recommendation for a quiet half-day outdoors.
Sandy Creek Nature Center Trails
A 225-acre woodland and wetland preserve with four-plus miles of marked trails including an ADA-accessible boardwalk over the wetlands and a connection to the North Oconee River Greenway. The quieter, shorter alternative to Sandy Creek Park's lake loop — better for birdwatching and families with young children.
Things to do
40 Watt Club
The 500-person indie-rock room that Athens built its national reputation on — named for the single bulb that lit its original third-floor location in 1979, and eventually the stage where R.E.M., Nirvana, Widespread Panic, and Sonic Youth all played. Still books adventurous touring acts most nights and remains the spiritual center of the Athens music scene.
Georgia Theatre
A downtown Athens landmark on Lumpkin Street hosting 1,000-cap standing concerts across rock, hip-hop, and roots music, with a rooftop bar that is open before and after most shows. The building dates to the late 1800s; the current interior was rebuilt after a fire and preserves much of the original aesthetic.
Landmarks & sights
Tree That Owns Itself
A white oak at the corner of Finley and Dearing Streets that holds legal deed to the land within eight feet of its trunk — a quirk of a 19th-century professor's will that Athens has honored ever since. The current tree was grown from an acorn of the original. It sits quietly in a residential block and is genuinely easy to miss, which is most of its charm.
Double-Barreled Cannon
A one-of-a-kind 1862 Confederate cannon designed to fire two iron balls connected by a chain — the prototype spectacularly failed its test, plowing up a cornfield and killing a cow before the chain snapped. It has lived on the lawn of Athens City Hall ever since, aimed north just in case.