The Eastside Trail is a two-and-a-half-mile strip of paving on an abandoned railway bed, and it has done more to change how Atlanta feels than anything built here in fifty years. On a Saturday it is a parade. On a Tuesday at eight in the morning it is a commuter route, a dog walk and a running track, and it is the best free thing to do in the city.
Start at Krog, not at Ponce
Everyone starts at Ponce City Market because that is where the photographs are. Start at the south end instead, at the Krog Street tunnel, and walk north: you get the graffiti tunnel and Cabbagetown before the crowds, the food halls arrive when you are hungry rather than when you are fresh, and you finish in Piedmont Park at the end of the afternoon instead of fighting up the trail against everyone who had the same idea.
From Inman Park–Reynoldstown station it is a seven-minute walk to the tunnel. The tunnel itself is repainted constantly, floods in heavy rain, and is a road as well as a wall — cars come through it faster than they should, so stay on the narrow pavement. Krog Street Market, a hundred metres up, is the better of the city’s two food halls for actually eating lunch and the worse one for standing about.
Eleven stops, south to north
Where it stops being pleasant
Three honest caveats. The first is Saturday afternoon between Ponce City Market and the 10th Street entrance, which is genuinely too busy to walk at a normal pace and impossible on a bike with any conscience. Go before ten or after six.
The second is shade, or the lack of it. The southern half is exposed, the paving holds heat, and between June and September the stretch from Krog to Ponce at two in the afternoon is a bad decision. There are water fountains but not at useful intervals; carry a bottle.
The third is the dark. The Eastside Trail is lit and busy into the evening for most of its length, and that is a real difference from the Westside and Southside stretches, which empty out fast after sunset. If you are walking home late from Ponce, the street grid a block east is the better route, and everybody local already knows that.
How we would do it again
Take the Blue line to Inman Park–Reynoldstown for nine in the morning. Walk through the tunnel, up through Cabbagetown, and get coffee at the Krog end. Join the trail and go north slowly, stopping at the skate park, the Historic Fourth Ward pond and the Masquerade lawn. Eat at Ponce City Market before noon, when the hall is calm, and skip the paid roof unless it is a clear evening and you have never seen the skyline.
Then keep going north to the 10th Street gate, cut into Piedmont Park, and spend the rest of the afternoon on the grass with the skyline behind you. Come out on the Midtown side for dinner and take the train home from Midtown station, which is six minutes to Downtown and twenty-five back to the airport. That is a whole day, it costs two fares and lunch, and it is the single best introduction to this city we know of.
Walked end to end twice in September 2026, once on a Tuesday morning and once on a Saturday afternoon, with distances read off the trail’s own mile markers. Prices are what we paid at the counter that week and are the most likely thing on this page to be out of date. Nothing here is sponsored, no venue knew we were coming, and the two stops we say to skip are ones we paid for first.
Read the method ↗
