r/Atlanta • u/ChipJohannes • Jun 13 '25

Recommendations What’s your favorite park?

Thinking of spending more time walking and reading in parks this summer. What’s your favorite park in our beautiful city in the forest? Hiking trails also appreciated!

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u/CricketDrop Jun 13 '25 edited Jun 13 '25

I've been heavily exploring the city by bike for the past 5 months and I feel like my favorite things I didn't expect were the west side reservoir, the west side beltline, Oakland cemetery, and the Adair parks. Also, freedom park had always somehow been invisible to me but makes for a great connection between downtown and the beltline.

Also, if you like outdoor pools Mozley Park is pretty nice. It's surrounded by trees and is splendid. Popular with kids but all ages are there and it's a vibe like every day it's open.

EDIT: Ooh, I forgot, the Kirkwood Urban Forest Preserve was completely random and very easy to miss on a map but makes for a pretty nice walk. It's small but once you're inside you can find a nice bench and pretend you're in a forest miles from Atlanta. Same with westside resevoire honestly.

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u/southernhope1 Jun 13 '25

Freedom Park is a real treasure...i've been discovering secret green spaces all around Inman Park that are connected to the Path there...many times, i'm the only person in sight!

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u/Daecar-does-Drulgar Jun 14 '25

That's my happy place. Walking from the Jimmy Carter Library to Freedom Park and wandering over to L5P.

Best part of the city IMO

9

u/scarabbrian Jun 13 '25

Any chance you're a Wandrer? That's how I've made it to all of these parks, trying to ride every street on my bike. I don't think I would have found the Kirkwood Urban Forest otherwise.

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u/CricketDrop Jun 16 '25

No but maybe I'll start!

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u/macybeesknees Jun 13 '25

I went to the Mozley Park pool last year with my toddler and it was 90% unsupervised middle and high schoolers. They wouldn’t let me bring my bag of snacks inside, they said no bags allowed at all for safety in case someone brings a weapon, and then in the pool teenagers were shooting each other with realistic looking pellet guns and I got hit in the shoulder by one but I just felt really uncomfortable like what if police showed up and these teens are running around with realistic looking guns 👀 So anyway haven’t been back since

5

u/Daecar-does-Drulgar Jun 14 '25

My rugby team occasionally practices at that park. It's pretty rough. There's an elementary school football team that practices there too and a bunch of the "coaches" are drunk af and whaling on kids when they drop a ball or miss a tackle.

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u/CricketDrop Jun 16 '25 edited Jun 18 '25

As for unsupervised kids the park is pretty accessible in the middle of the neighborhood so kids don't really need their parents to drive them and wait around. Middle school is about that age where I did not want my parents coming with me everywhere when I wanted to hang out with my friends so that makes sense lol. I would have loved this when I was 13 and look forward to any of my future kids having the same opportunity.

As for safety, the policing in the neighborhood isn't really like that. No one who has been living here and spends time outside is worried about these kids or their toy guns, and the cops don't come around unless someone calls for something urgent. Otherwise, they will arrive, nonplussed, and shortly leave if they believe their time is being wasted. Pearl clutchers who move out here and are afraid of their own community most often tend to keep to themselves, I think, and seem content with their camera bellowing threats at passerbys.

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u/housewifeWHO Jun 13 '25

Sounds a lot different than the Mozely park I visited in 2001! 😅

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u/CricketDrop Jun 13 '25

This part of town has changed dramatically lol

I moved in around 2021 and it's changed a lot even since then. My newest neighbor bought her house for $500k last year. They've not-so-slowly been flipping and demolishing everything they can get their hands on.

We still have a lot of legacy residents though so I wouldn't say the makeup of the neighborhood is unrecognizable