Slow Travel Review: Decatur, Georgia, USA – The Land Of Flowers And Food

As someone who was born and raised in Georgia, learning that somewhere like Decatur, GA exists downtown is simply wild. I have gone on and on about how Atlanta represents some of the worst things about our modern world, such as the impossible traffic, lack of public transportation or sidewalks and the general creepy Stepford Wives feel of the suburbs I grew up in.

Well after gathering more information, I have to change my opinion. I can now confirm that pedestrian havens exist in Georgia…they are just so expensive to buy property in that they’re reserved for the elite, those who are cool with massive amounts of debt and…Airbnb nomads like us 🙂 .

The original reason I chose Decatur as our home for the month of April was for the proximity to my Mom. She’s still a drive away, but much closer than she was to our rural tiny house. So I chose this neighborhood because I saw that it had access to grocery stores in addition to the proximity to my Mom and that was that. I had no idea the paradise I would discover as soon as we moved here. So let’s get into the good, the bad and the delicious in this Atlanta neighborhood!

Walkability

Decatur is the most pedestrian-friendly place I’ve ever seen in Georgia. The suburbs I grew up in didn’t even have sidewalks so walking anywhere meant taking your life into your own hands basically. Cars were a requirement and so kids are basically trapped until you could get a license and afford your own wheels.

By comparison, Decatur reminds me of the cities’ neighborhoods I’ve lived in across the country, such as Queen Anne in Seattle, WA and the Upper West Side in NYC. There are sidewalks, crosswalks and public transit everywhere.

Because of the pandemic, we haven’t used public transit in over a year, but if we did, this would be the place to be. I’ve also joked that Georgia doesn’t have any public transit and that’s one of the reasons the traffic is some of the worst in the country. And while that’s true, it’s not the case in Decatur. There are MARTA stations and bus stations everywhere.

And since we didn’t want to take transit in this climate, there were sidewalks to take us anywhere we needed to go. Decatur also eliminates something else I dislike about Georgia: the urban sprawl. It was normal to expect going anywhere to take 30 minutes. It took an hour to get to most of my friends’ houses growing up.

In comparison, Decatur is walking distance to several grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, gyms – anything you would need. No driving required and definitely not 30 minutes of it. It feels like a neighborhood instead of a suburban nightmare 🙂 .

Inclusivity

Atlanta is a little progressive bubble in a generally conservative state. The recent elections saw the state of Georgia vote blue overall for the first time since Carter almost 30 years ago. I’ve always felt generally safe when staying in Metro Atlanta and didn’t expect verbal or physical attacks on my person because of how I look.

However, Decatur ramped that welcoming nature up to 11. Not that yard signs are the pinnacle of understanding the inclusivity of a place, but it surely did make me feel welcome:

The many Love is Love🏳️‍🌈 and Black Lives Matter✊🏾 signs in our new Atlanta neighborhood combined with these intricate recycling instructions makes me feel like I'm back in Seattle 🤣. You've changed since I moved away ATL and it looks good on you😍!! pic.twitter.com/50ONvXq9et

— A Purple Life (@APurpleLifeBlog) April 2, 2021

These signs being absolutely everywhere paired with how warmly I was greeted everywhere I went (and I mean a real warm welcome, not ‘southern hospitality’ 😉 ) made me feel right at home. In fact I felt more at home in Decatur than I ever have in the suburb I grew up in.

Nature

Nature in the Georgia suburbs I grew up in basically didn’t exist. It was the land of cul de sacs and parks that were mostly cement parking lots. Not exactly what I imagine when I think of nature.

Decatur however, is a natural haven. I was originally excited because I saw that there were an abundance of parks nearby, but after exploring some of them, I realized that while they are pretty and the number of them close by is amazing, the actual Decatur neighborhood is even more beautiful than the parks themselves.

There are trees and flowers absolutely everywhere and basically none of it is the highly manicured, unnatural feel of the suburbs. It actually reminded me of Seattle, which is the greenest city I’ve ever seen before. It’s beautiful everywhere you look and it doesn’t feel like you’re in the middle of a city at all.

Food

I feel like this entire review is just revealing how much I disliked my childhood suburb……so in that same vein 🙂 , the food available in Decatur goes against everything that I thought was available in Georgia.

Like many suburbs, where I grew up was a sea of chain restaurants. Basically nothing unique or very interesting. In contrast, I didn’t see any chains in our part of Decatur. It was all unique restaurants that were trying to survive through a pandemic – and they were DELICIOUS!

Here are some examples of what I ate – for all restaurants check out my Instagram where I post mini-reviews of them all:

Cost

I like to base my estimates on solid facts and that’s why I began my retirement calculations by assuming I would continue living my awesome life in Seattle, which costs $18,000 a year with an additional 11% on top just in case, to come to a round $20,000.

This assumption also adds another cushion to my plan because most places in the USA and especially the world are cheaper to live in than Seattle, Washington. Here’s how Atlanta, Georgia stacks up:

Lodging 

Cost: $807.68 each

Obviously my largest expense month to month is my lodging, which I book through Airbnb. Here’s where we stayed during the month of April:

I split this expense with my partner. We aim to book 1 bedrooms with outdoor spaces and a washer/dryer in each location. When I travel without my partner, I would be looking at smaller lodgings (most likely studios because I don’t trust corners 😉 ) for a similar price to what I get by splitting with my partner.

Food

Grocery Cost: $253.28

There are a surprising number of large grocery stores in this neighborhood and all of them offered grocery delivery or pickup. We opted for pickup at Kroger and they are waiving the $5 pick up fee for the pandemic. I might keep this up even post pandemic though – not having to shop for my own groceries is worth $5 to me…wow I really am getting bougie in retirement 😉 .

Eating Out Cost: $441

This is not surprising to me and I regret nothing 🙂 . There were so many places to try in our neighborhood and I didn’t even get to all of them on my list despite us staying there a month. It was delicious.

Transit

Cost: $0

A benefit of being in such an amazing pedestrian neighborhood means I spent $0 on transit. If we were not in a pandemic, I would have taken a few buses and used the MARTA, but since we are not, I walked everywhere.

When my Mom visited, we used her car to do grocery pick up as I mentioned above, but if she wasn’t available, we would have gotten delivery for a few extra dollars like we’re doing in Maine this month or gotten an Uber with our groceries like we have in Seattle previously.

I imagine when we return, this category will be more than $0, but still not wild since public transit is all over this neighborhood and barely needed since everything necessary is within walking distance.

Weird Caveats

Every place has their own weird quirks. Let’s get into Decatur’s:

Prohibition Style Rules

Growing up, you couldn’t buy alcohol on Sundays or any day before a certain random time or after 10pm in Georgia. I thought Jesus turned water into wine so I was a little confused by this rule. Luckily this law was removed a few years ago, but Georgia still has some weird alcohol laws that I wasn’t even aware of until last Christmas and wanted to give you a heads up about.

You can buy beer and wine at grocery stores and liquor specifically from liquor stores. Most counties now allow liquor sales on Sunday (some small ones in rural areas still don’t). It was put to statewide vote in 2011 and 105 of 159 counties chose to repeal the Sunday law. Of the ones that did, they are not allowed to sell before 12:30pm. Plan your brunch outing accordingly!

Mask Mandates In Pandemic Times

Georgia has been (justly) derided in the media for never having a state mask mandate during this pandemic. But what I hadn’t seen usually mentioned in those articles is that most cities in Georgia fought this ruling and instituted mask mandates themselves. So while it’s not state mandated, it is at a city level.

For example, Decatur has such a requirement and all businesses here have to abide by them. I was originally hesitant to move to Georgia when I heard how they were handling the pandemic, but after looking into it and seeing that cities were doing their best to keep their citizens safe, I was comfortable moving to the cities there. Just an interesting tidbit that I don’t see talked about – what’s happening at the state level is not the end of the story.

In contrast, now we’re in Maine where until a few days before we landed, it was required that you wear a mask whenever you leave your house – including walking around outside even if no one is around. Everyplace has their own rules.

Conclusion

So those are all the positives and negatives of the neighborhood of Decatur, Georgia. I’m thinking about doing these kinds of reviews for all the places we live in long enough to call it “slow” travel. Let me know if that’s something you would be interested in and if there’s any other kind of information on these cities you’d like me to include below 🙂 .

I hope by describing cities that some of you might not have heard of will help combat stereotypes you might have about a place and provide additional options for locations you might like to visit. There’s a whole world out there and I’m so excited to see more of it 🙂 .

What’s a city that’s surprised you?