12 Best Day Trips from Atlanta (No Car Needed)
by Kaitlin Cabaniss
Atlanta likes to pretend it can’t be left without a car. Don’t believe it. Greyhound and FlixBus fan out from downtown to every city worth a Saturday within three hours, Amtrak’s Crescent rolls through once a day in each direction, and the stations sit on MARTA. Here are 12 places worth the ride, sorted by how long they take to reach, with live fares on the routes Wanderu sells, plus two that earn a whole weekend.
We first wrote this page in 2018 as a list of 21 places you could reach from Atlanta for under $20. That list didn’t survive contact with the 2020s. Megabus quit the Southeast in 2024. Southeastern Stages, which carried the small-town Georgia routes for more than 90 years, shut down in 2025 and took five stops with it, and Chattanooga went dark for two years before Greyhound put it back on the map. And the fares moved: of the roughly 4,100 tickets booked from Atlanta on Wanderu in the past year, almost none cost under $20. So we rebuilt the list around the places still worth going to, kept the fares honest, and marked the few that still squeeze under the old line. Before you go, our guide to what to love about Atlanta makes the case for staying put.
| Destination | Travel time | From |
|---|---|---|
| Macon, GA | From 1 hour 20 minutes by bus | $15 FlixBus |
| Athens, GA | About 1 hour 30 minutes by bus | $14 Bus |
| Gainesville, GA | 1 hour 30 minutes by bus, 52 minutes on Amtrak | $10 Greyhound$25 Amtrak |
| Columbus, GA | 1 hour 50 minutes by bus | $19 Greyhound |
| Chattanooga, TN | From about 2 hours 10 minutes by bus | Greyhound |
| Augusta, GA | From about 2 hours 15 minutes by bus | $22 Bus |
| Greenville, SC | From about 2 hours by bus | $23 Bus |
| Birmingham, AL | 2 hours 30 minutes by bus, about 4 and a half hours on Amtrak | $21 Greyhound$24 Amtrak |
| Montgomery, AL | From about 3 hours by bus | $26 Bus |
| Charlotte, NC | From 3 hours 45 minutes by bus | $29 Bus$64 Amtrak |
| Nashville, TN | From just over 4 hours by bus | $31 Bus |
| Savannah, GA | From about 4 and a half hours by bus | $34 Bus |
| Charleston, SC | About 7 hours by bus | Greyhound |
| New Orleans, LA | From about 9 and a half hours by bus, overnight on Amtrak | $50 Greyhound$38 Amtrak |
Where the buses and trains leave from
- 232 Forsyth Street: the downtown terminal for Greyhound and most FlixBus departures, directly beside MARTA’s Garnett station. We wrote a full guide to the Forsyth Street terminal if it’s your first time through.
- Civic Center MARTA and the airport: FlixBus and RedCoach board at both for some departures. Check which stop your ticket names; the airport pickups are on the lower level.
- Peachtree Station (1688 Peachtree St NW): Amtrak’s Atlanta stop, where the Crescent calls once a day in each direction. Our Peachtree Station guide covers getting there on MARTA and what to expect. A southbound Crescent day trip to Birmingham leaves mid-morning; the northbound through Gainesville and Greenville passes late at night.
Under two hours
Macon, GA
From 1 hour 20 minutes by bus
- Atlanta to Macon busesfrom $15
The shortest ride on this page, and as of September 2026 the cheapest. FlixBus runs Atlanta to Macon in as little as 1 hour 20 minutes, and it’s the one Georgia route where booking a week ahead still gets you a ticket in the teens. The typical Macon ticket bought on Wanderu in the past year was about $25.
Macon out-Souths Atlanta by a comfortable margin. The Hay House is a 18,000-square-foot Italianate pile from the 1850s, the Allman Brothers lived and recorded at the Big House, and the Ocmulgee Mounds have been drawing people to this spot on the river for a thousand years. In late March the city holds one of the biggest cherry blossom festivals in the country, with about 350,000 Yoshino trees in bloom.
Athens, GA
About 1 hour 30 minutes by bus
- Atlanta to Athens busesfrom $14
Athens spent most of the past decade barely connected to Atlanta, which never made sense for a college town of this size. That changed in November 2025, when Greyhound added Athens to a new Atlanta to Raleigh route. FlixBus sells the hop too, and booked ahead it starts under $20, which makes Athens one of the last true cheap day trips from the city.
Go on a fall Saturday and you get Sanford Stadium at full roar. Go any other day and you get the town that gave the world R.E.M. and the B-52s. The 40 Watt Club still books shows, the State Botanical Garden is free, and the double-barreled cannon on City Hall’s lawn remains the most Georgia monument in Georgia. It never worked. They kept it anyway.
Gainesville, GA
1 hour 30 minutes by bus, 52 minutes on Amtrak
- Atlanta to Gainesville busesfrom $10
- Atlanta to Gainesville trainsfrom $25
The gateway to Lake Lanier, and the shortest train ride out of Atlanta on the map. Take the schedule seriously though: the Crescent’s northbound stop toward Gainesville leaves Atlanta late at night, so for an actual day trip the Greyhound is the practical way up and back. The lake is the draw, with Lanier Islands’ beaches and boat rentals in summer, and downtown Gainesville’s square has quietly built out a good food scene for a town that calls itself the Poultry Capital of the World.
Columbus, GA
1 hour 50 minutes by bus
- Atlanta to Columbus busesfrom $19
Columbus turned its stretch of the Chattahoochee into the longest urban whitewater course in the world, and you can raft it on a day trip. The 2.5-mile course runs right through downtown, with the RiverWalk alongside it, and the National Infantry Museum, a short rideshare south of downtown, ranks among the best free museums in the South. Greyhound does the run in under two hours, and booked ahead it’s one of the three Georgia routes that still dips under $20.
Two to three hours
Chattanooga, TN
From about 2 hours 10 minutes by bus
Chattanooga fell off the bus map for two years after Megabus quit the Southeast, and it’s back: Greyhound runs multiple trips a day from downtown Atlanta in a bit over two hours. That matters because Chattanooga might be the single best-equipped day-trip city on this page. The Tennessee Aquarium is still one of the best in the country, and the riverfront around it packs the art district, Coolidge Park and the carousel into a walkable mile.
What’s new: Erlanger Park, the Lookouts’ riverfront ballpark, opened in April 2026 on the old foundry site, with the restored industrial buildings folded into the outfield. Minor league baseball, a river view, and a bus home the same night.
Augusta, GA
From about 2 hours 15 minutes by bus
- Atlanta to Augusta busesfrom $22
Unless you know somebody, you’re not getting a Masters badge. The rest of the year, Augusta is James Brown’s hometown and a river town with a good Riverwalk, plus the Morris Museum of Art, the first museum dedicated to the art of the South. Greyhound’s new Atlanta to Raleigh route, added in November 2025, put Augusta back on a one-seat ride from Atlanta after Southeastern Stages shut down.
Greenville, SC
From about 2 hours by bus
- Atlanta to Greenville busesfrom $23
Greenville hosted the Michelin Guide’s first American South awards in November 2025 and walked away with a starred restaurant of its own, which surprised nobody who’s eaten there lately. Falls Park sits in the middle of downtown, with the Liberty Bridge cantilevered over a real waterfall, and the Swamp Rabbit Trail runs 28 miles if you rent a bike. Buses take from about two hours; the Crescent stops here too, but in the middle of the night in both directions, so ride the bus.
Birmingham, AL
2 hours 30 minutes by bus, about 4 and a half hours on Amtrak
- Atlanta to Birmingham busesfrom $21
- Atlanta to Birmingham trainsfrom $24
One of the busiest close-in corridors out of Atlanta, and the cheapest of the big ones: the typical Birmingham ticket on Wanderu in the past year was about $39, with advance fares in the twenties. Greyhound does it in two and a half hours. The Crescent takes its time getting there, but it’s the one Amtrak day trip from Atlanta the schedule actually allows: out mid-morning, back late the same night.
The Civil Rights District is the reason to go: the 16th Street Baptist Church, Kelly Ingram Park, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute sit within a block of each other. Lunch is barbecue or a hot dog from Gus’s, and Railroad Park and the Rotary Trail fill the afternoon.
Montgomery, AL
From about 3 hours by bus
- Atlanta to Montgomery busesfrom $26
Montgomery holds the most affecting museum experience in the South: the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, built by the Equal Justice Initiative. Plan the day around them. The Rosa Parks Museum stands at the corner where she was arrested, and Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church still holds services a block from the Capitol. The fastest buses do it in about three hours, so it’s a full day, and it earns it.
Three to five hours: a long day or an easy overnight
These get booked as day trips, and people do make the morning-out, evening-back math work. We’d still pack a toothbrush.
Charlotte, NC
From 3 hours 45 minutes by bus
- Atlanta to Charlotte busesfrom $29
- Atlanta to Charlotte trainsfrom $64
Charlotte was the most-booked destination on this list in the past year of Wanderu bookings from Atlanta, with around ten buses a day. The typical ticket ran about $54, and booking two weeks out brought it near $40. The U.S. National Whitewater Center is the outdoorsy draw, the NASCAR Hall of Fame is uptown, and the light rail makes the city easy without a car. The Crescent connects the two cities as well, at hours better suited to an overnight.
Nashville, TN
From just over 4 hours by bus
- Atlanta to Nashville busesfrom $31
You know what Nashville is. Broadway’s honky-tonks are free to enter, the Country Music Hall of Fame isn’t, and both are worth it. The typical ticket from Atlanta ran about $54 last year, dropping to the low forties with two weeks’ notice. Go before February 2027 and you’ll beat the crowds coming for the new enclosed Nissan Stadium, which is on track to open in time for that season.
Savannah, GA
From about 4 and a half hours by bus
- Atlanta to Savannah busesfrom $34
The squares, the Spanish moss, the whole postcard. Savannah is the longest ride in Georgia on this list, and people still day-trip it, though it rewards a night in a way Macon doesn’t. The historic district is compact and walkable from the visitor center, Forsyth Park anchors the south end, and the riverfront has been rebuilt around the Plant Riverside District. Georgia has a funded study underway for passenger rail between Atlanta and Savannah; until that becomes a train, the bus is the ride.
Make it a weekend
Charleston, SC
About 7 hours by bus
New in November 2025: Greyhound started a one-seat ride from Atlanta to Charleston by way of Florence and Myrtle Beach. Seven hours is a weekend, not a day. Book a Friday morning out and you’re eating she-crab soup by dinner, with Rainbow Row, the Battery, and Fort Sumter ahead of you and two nights to work through them.
New Orleans, LA
From about 9 and a half hours by bus, overnight on Amtrak
- Atlanta to New Orleans busesfrom $50
- Atlanta to New Orleans trainsfrom $38
The Crescent is named for this city, and riding it there is the classic move: out of Atlanta mid-morning, into New Orleans by evening, the whole Gulf South rolling past the window. The bus is cheaper and takes about nine and a half hours. Either way it’s a proper weekend: the French Quarter and the streetcars, beignets at dawn, and Emeril’s, which the Michelin Guide’s first Southern edition made the region’s only two-star restaurant in November 2025.
What’s still under $20 (the honest list)
The 2018 version of this page promised 21 destinations under $20. As of September 2026, booking a week or more ahead, three still get there: Athens, Macon and Columbus. That’s the whole list. The live prices on this page tell you what each route starts at today, and when a cheap fare shows up, it goes to whoever booked early. The idea lives on in our under-$20 guides for cities where the fares still cooperate.
The famous day trips you can’t do without a car
Helen, Dahlonega, Blue Ridge, Amicalola Falls and Providence Canyon top most Atlanta day-trip lists, and not one of them has a bus or a train. Asheville is technically bookable, but the current routing takes most of a day each way with a transfer, which makes it an overnight, not a day trip. If the mountains are the goal, Chattanooga and Gainesville are the car-free ways to get near them.
The rest of the 2018 list
Five of the 21 places on the old under-$20 list no longer have any service from Atlanta at all: Conyers, Monroe, Madison, Greensboro and Washington in Georgia lost their buses when Southeastern Stages shut down, and no one has picked the routes back up. Columbia, SC has nearly gone quiet too. Longer rides like Orlando, Memphis, Louisville and Mobile are still bookable, but at five hours and up they stopped being day trips, and at $40 and up they stopped being under-$20 stories. The Crescent’s small Georgia stops are still bookable and listed below.
- Toccoafrom $34
How to pay less (what 4,100 tickets say)
We looked at every Atlanta departure booked on Wanderu between September 2025 and September 2026. Four things held up:
- The $20 day trip is nearly gone. Almost none of the tickets booked from Atlanta in the past year came in under $20. Budget $25 to $55 for most of this page and you’ll be right more often than not.
- Bus fares fall with notice. On the biggest corridors, booking two weeks ahead cut the typical fare by a quarter to a third: Birmingham dropped from about $42 booked last-minute to about $30, Charlotte from about $56 to $41, Nashville from about $60 to $43. The Crescent’s Birmingham fare barely moves, so the train rewards spontaneity and the bus rewards planning.
- There is no cheap month. We checked the biggest corridors month by month, and the swings were ordinary variation, not a season. Go when you want to go.
- Half of Atlanta books last-minute, and pays for it. About half of the tickets from Atlanta were bought a day or less before travel, which is exactly when fares peak. Deciding on Wednesday to leave on Saturday is all the planning most of these routes ask.
For the version of this advice that works from any city, read our guide to finding the cheapest tickets.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best day trips from Atlanta by train?
Birmingham is the one true Amtrak day trip from Atlanta: the Crescent leaves Atlanta mid-morning and the return gets you back late the same night. The Crescent also stops at Gainesville and Toccoa in Georgia and at Greenville, SC, but its northbound schedule passes through them late at night, so for those, ride the bus. Atlanta has one Amtrak line, so most day trips from the city go by bus.
What is 2 hours away from Atlanta?
By bus, at the fastest scheduled times: Macon (1 hour 20 minutes), Athens and Gainesville (about 1 hour 30), Columbus (1 hour 50), Chattanooga (about 2 hours 10), Greenville, SC (about 2 hours), and Augusta (about 2 hours 15). Birmingham is 2 and a half hours. Every one of them runs from downtown Atlanta.
Can you do day trips from Atlanta without a car?
Yes. Every destination on this page has a bus or a train from Atlanta, and the stations are on MARTA: the Greyhound and FlixBus terminal at 232 Forsyth Street is next to Garnett station, and Amtrak’s Peachtree Station is a short ride up Peachtree. The famous North Georgia mountain towns are the exception; Helen, Dahlonega and Blue Ridge have no bus or train.
Is the bus or the train cheaper from Atlanta?
The bus, almost always. Atlanta has one Amtrak route, the Crescent, and its fares to Birmingham run about even with the bus while taking longer. Bus fares also fall the further ahead you book, which the Crescent’s short-hop fares mostly don’t.
What day trips from Atlanta are under $20?
As of September 2026, three routes still start under $20 when you book a week or more ahead: Athens, Macon and Columbus. On a typical day almost nothing from Atlanta sells under $20 anymore; of the roughly 4,100 tickets booked on Wanderu from Atlanta in the past year, almost none came in under that line.
What are good weekend trips from Atlanta by bus or train?
Charleston (about 7 hours on Greyhound’s one-seat ride, new in November 2025), New Orleans (the Amtrak Crescent by day, or about 9 and a half hours by bus), Savannah (about 4 and a half hours) and Nashville (just over 4 hours) are the ones people book most. Savannah and Nashville also work as long day trips.
The “from” prices on this page refresh from Wanderu’s route data: each is the cheapest fare recently available on that route, the same figure its route page shows. What you pay depends on when you book. “Typical” fares are Wanderu bookings from Atlanta, September 2025 to September 2026, per ticket, the full price paid.
Pssst — get our best stories in your inbox
One email a week. Cheap trips, honest guides, zero fake urgency. Chiku's got your back.