The city's best days out were built for children in the first place.

What works, by age

Babies and toddlers get the green space: Piedmont Park's lawns and lake for the blanket hours, and the Botanical Garden's award-winning Children's Garden, with the park and the garden a short walk apart in Midtown. Young children are the LEGO Discovery Center's exact audience: it is designed for ages 3 to 10, adults are admitted only with a child, and its DUPLO Park covers the under-5s. Zoo Atlanta suits small legs, a morning's worth of walking under Grant Park's oaks, and the World of Coca-Cola runs about two hours and ends in a tasting room. Older children can carry the big days: Fernbank pairs its dinosaur halls and a giant screen film with 75 acres of forest trails, the College Football Hall of Fame lets them throw and kick on a 45-yard indoor field, and Stone Mountain adds the Skyride, the railroad and a summit to climb. Teenagers get the city's serious rooms: the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, whose lunch counter sit-in simulation lands hardest with older children, the High Museum's exhibitions, and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park on Auburn Avenue, free and self-guided.

The logistics that help

MARTA does the heavy lifting. The downtown sights cluster within a walk of Peachtree Center and Civic Center stations, the High Museum stands across from Arts Center station, and its own site puts weekday trains at every 10 to 20 minutes. Several of the big sights sell date-specific or timed tickets, among them the Botanical Garden, the LEGO Discovery Center and the Center for Civil and Human Rights, so book the day before and let the slots set the day's shape. The Martin Luther King Jr. park needs an early start instead: its Birth Home presentations are free but capped at 15 people, claimed in person on the day. In summer the heat organises the day: the zoo, the park and the BeltLine in the morning, a museum or the Aquarium at midday.