Skip to site content
group travel leader select traveler small market meetings

Youth Focus: Atlanta

 


Courtesy World of Coca Cola


[ A sweet museum ]

The world’s largest soft drink company, Coca-Cola, calls Atlanta home. At the World of Coca-Cola museum downtown, visitors can get to know the company’s history, see some of its iconic memorabilia and explore its products from around the globe.

The museum features exhibits such as Coca-Cola Loft, which has a collection of branded artifacts from throughout the company’s history. The Milestones of Refreshment gallery tells the story of the drink’s creation and the growth of the company throughout the company’s history.

Coca-Cola keeps its guarded secret formula in a vault on-site in the museum. Visitors can learn some about making soft drinks in the Happiness Factory Theater or see a demonstration of a real production line at Bottle Works.

The top floor of the museum features two additional theaters, as well as the Taste It exhibit, where visitors can sample variations of Coca-Cola from more than 60 countries.

[ On air ]
For years, one of the biggest names in news has operated from Atlanta. Groups visiting the city can take a tour inside the CNN studios, where they’ll see sets used for broadcasting shows that appear all over the world.

Several types of tours are available to visitors. The CNN Center is open to the public and has a food court and CNN retail shops. Groups can plan a free visit to the center or book the Inside CNN Studio Tour, a 55-minute walking tour that showcases the newsroom, where reporters work to gather information for stories, as well as some of the studios where live broadcasts take place.

For a more in-depth experience, groups of 12 or fewer can take the VIP Studio Tour, which takes participants inside the Headline News control room and HD Studio 7, where most of CNN’s daytime broadcasting takes place. The Morning Express tour gives visitors the chance to experience the popular “Morning Express with Robin Meade” program from inside the studio.

[ That rock won’t roll ]
About 15 miles east of downtown Atlanta, Stone Mountain Park is Georgia’s most-visited attraction. Built around Stone Mountain (the world’s largest granite rock), this five-square-mile park has dozens of shows, activities and experiences for groups.

Young visitors will enjoy Sky Hike, an adventure course with a quarter-mile of suspended bridges, ropes and climbing nets. The park’s Summit Skyride takes visitors to the top of Stone Mountain for a breathtaking view of Atlanta. Visitors can go hiking on wooded trails around the park or fish in Stone Mountain Lake.

The park has a number of entertainment options as well. A laser light show projected on the mountain each evening features fireworks and special effects choreographed with music, and a 4-D theater shows short, immersive features. The park also hosts a number of special events each year, including Stone Mountain Christmas in November and December.

Brian Jewell

Brian Jewell is the executive editor of The Group Travel Leader. In more than a decade of travel journalism he has visited 48 states and 25 foreign countries.