Fall Trips From Atlanta: Getting Back to Our Mountain Roots

If you’ve spent any time on this blog, you could easily assume I’m a beach girl. There are certainly enough beach posts around here to make a pretty convincing case.

The truth is, I’m a mountain girl through and through.

Before we had Coop, Heath and I spent thousands of miles on hiking trails. When we lived in Colorado, we were gone almost every weekend. We hiked 14ers, explored trails all over the state and basically planned our free time around where we could hike next. Some couples had brunch plans on Saturday mornings. We were usually somewhere on the side of a mountain.

Then we had a baby, and at three months old, that baby was strapped into a carrier and right back on the trails with us.

Having Coop didn’t make us stop hiking. We just figured out how to bring him along. He’s hiked Amicalola Falls and more trails around Georgia than I could probably count at this point. As he’s gotten older, though, our family vacations have definitely started leaning more toward the beach. He loves it, and because we’re parents and our children somehow eventually take over the vacation planning, we’ve happily followed.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the beach too. But if you really want to make me happy, give me a beach where I can put on a mask and snorkel or dive. I want to know what’s underneath the water. Lying on the sand for seven straight days has never really been my thing.

Put me on a trail with somewhere beautiful at the end, though, and I can walk all day.

Maybe that’s why our recent weekend in Ellijay felt so much like coming home. We rented a cabin right on the river, hiked 7.3 miles, let Coop and the dogs spend practically the entire weekend outside and watched lightning bugs at night. There wasn’t a packed itinerary or a list of things we had to see before we left. We just slowed down and spent the weekend outside.

It wasn’t some new discovery for Heath and me. It was getting back to something we’ve loved for a very long time, only now we get to do it with Coop.

And this fall, we’re leaning into it.

Halloween at Rock City for Fall Break

Our biggest fall plan is a weekend away during Coop’s school fall break in October, and we’re building it around Halloween at Rock City on Lookout Mountain.

Rock City is beautiful any time of year, but October in the mountains just hits differently. The leaves are changing, the air finally feels like fall and Rock City goes all in for the season with its Enchanted Pumpkin Patch. The 2026 event runs September 18 through October 31 and includes lighted jack-o’-lantern displays, pumpkin sculptures, seasonal activities and live entertainment.

Thankfully, it’s more fun Halloween than terrifying Halloween, because I have absolutely no desire to pay someone to chase me through the woods with a chainsaw. Life provides enough anxiety for free.

We’re also not planning to make Rock City the entire trip. I want to find a cozy dog friendly B&B somewhere around Lookout Mountain or Chattanooga where we can bring the pups, settle in for a couple of nights and make an actual weekend out of it.

We’ll do Rock City, find a good trail to hike and hopefully catch some fall color while we’re there. Beyond that, I don’t really want much of an itinerary. I want cool mornings, coffee somewhere outside, tired dogs at the end of the day and enough time that nobody feels like we’re racing to the next thing.

That sounds like a pretty perfect fall break to me.

Apple Picking at Mercier Orchards

Apple picking is also happening this year.

Mercier Orchards in Blue Ridge has been on our radar, and this is exactly the kind of fall day I love. We can drive up from Atlanta in the morning, spend some time in the mountains, pick apples if U-Pick is available and wander through the market and bakery.

And by “wander through the market,” I obviously mean leave with entirely too many things we didn’t technically go there to buy.

Mercier has been family owned since 1943 and offers U-Pick experiences depending on what’s in season and available. Since picking conditions can change, I’ll check before we go rather than promising Coop an apple-picking adventure only to arrive and discover Mom failed at planning. Even without U-Pick, there’s still the market, bakery and plenty of reasons to make the drive.

This is one of the things I love about living where we do. We don’t necessarily need to book a hotel every time we want to escape for a little while. We can wake up on a Saturday morning, head north and be surrounded by mountains before we’ve had time to get thoroughly annoyed with each other in the car.

The Georgia Apple Festival in Ellijay

Since we’re already talking apples, we may also make it back to Ellijay for the Georgia Apple Festival.

The 55th annual Georgia Apple Festival takes place over two weekends this year, October 10 and 11 and October 17 and 18, 2026. The festival brings hundreds of vendors to the Ellijay Lions Club Fairgrounds, along with handmade arts and crafts, demonstrations, live music and plenty of fair food.

After our last weekend in Ellijay, I wouldn’t need much convincing to go back.

There is something about that area that makes it really easy to slow down. Maybe it’s the rivers. Maybe it’s being surrounded by trails and mountains. Maybe it’s the fact that my child and dogs can spend hours outside and nobody asks me where the charger is.

Whatever it is, it works.

If we go to the Apple Festival, I’d probably make an entire day of it. We could spend some time at the festival, stop by an orchard, wander around downtown Ellijay and find somewhere outside to enjoy the cooler weather before heading home.

Although I know myself well enough to admit there is a very real possibility that I’ll start looking at cabins and somehow turn our day trip into another weekend.

One thing worth knowing if your dogs travel everywhere with you like ours often do: pets aren’t allowed at the Georgia Apple Festival, so this particular adventure would have to be a Finn and Tucker-free day.

Oktoberfest in Helen

Helen is another fall trip we’re considering, and if there is ever a time of year to visit Georgia’s little Bavarian town, this is probably it.

The 56th annual Helen Oktoberfest runs September 10 through November 1, 2026, at the Helen Festhalle. September starts with select weekends before the celebration runs daily beginning October 1. There is German food, beer, live music, dancing and pretty much everything you’d expect from a town that has fully committed to its Bavarian personality.

Helen can get busy during Oktoberfest, so I wouldn’t choose this one if my only goal were to disappear into the mountains and not see another human for 48 hours. But that’s also what makes it a completely different kind of fall day.

We can enjoy Oktoberfest for a while and then get out of downtown and onto a trail. Anna Ruby Falls and Unicoi State Park are both right there, and the entire area around Helen is beautiful once the leaves begin changing.

That’s probably how we’d do Helen anyway. A little festival, a little food and then go find the mountains.

Finding Our Balance Between the Beach and the Mountains

I think this fall is making me realize something about the way our family travels.

For the last several years, we’ve naturally followed Coop toward the beach. He loves it, we’ve made some incredible memories there and I’m certainly not complaining about spending time near the water. Some of my favorite family trips have involved saltwater, sand and watching him explore somewhere new.

But I also want him to know this version of us.

I want him to know the parents who will happily walk ten miles just to see what’s around the next bend. The ones who used to spend practically every free weekend on a trail. The ones who climbed 14ers together and put thousands of miles under their hiking boots before he ever came along.

And I love that he was part of it almost from the beginning. We didn’t wait until he was “old enough” to hike. At three months old, we strapped him into a carrier and took him with us. As he grew, the trails changed and the distances changed, but being outside together never really did.

Maybe that’s the balance I’m looking for now.

We don’t have to be a beach family or a mountain family.

Some trips can have fins and snorkels, clear water and days spent looking for whatever is swimming underneath us. Others can have hiking boots, backpacks, waterfalls and that wonderful feeling when your legs are completely exhausted at the end of the day.

There can be cabins and condos. Apple orchards and barrier islands. Mountain trails and coral reefs.

What matters to me more and more is that we’re outside experiencing it together.

So this fall, we’re getting back to our mountain roots a little bit. We’re planning Halloween at Rock City, looking for that dog friendly B&B, picking apples at Mercier, hiking as much as we can and maybe squeezing in a fall festival or two along the way.

Nothing extravagant. Nothing that requires months of planning.

Just a few weekends in the mountains doing something Heath and I have loved for a very long time, with the boy who has been tagging along on our adventures since he was small enough to fit in a carrier.

And this time, the hiking boots are winning. ❤️

✍️ Written by Tanya Michelle fall trips close to Atlanta

Founder of The Mama Life Blog, singer-songwriter, and family travel storyteller based in Georgia. Tanya shares real-life parenting moments, Southeast travel escapes, and creative ways to balance motherhood, music, and meaning.

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