Hampton Inn Buckhead Atlanta - How bad is the traffic in this area?
 

We are planning a short trip - two to three days - in Atlanta. We are considering the Hampton Inn in Buckhead. Address: 3398 Piedmont Road NE. Plans include: the zoo, centennial park, aquarium, Lenox/Philips mall, and IKEA. We will be driving from Florida. We will be driving to the zoo and IKEA and taking MARTA to centennial park.

My question is how is the local traffic around the Hampton Inn? Is there easy access to the highway nearby? Able to drive easily or walk to the mall and local restaurants?

I have read previous post that the traffic in this area is horrible. We will be staying on weds and thurs nights - 2 adults and 1 teenager.

Thanks for any info.

The traffic in and around Atlanta is indeed horrible, but there is a srategy that works well. Don't venture out before 9am and try to be back by 4pm.

The hotel is not the most convenient for the things that you list, except for Lenox/Phipps, and you could take MARTA there. Traffic in the Piedmont Road area of Buckhead is pretty heavy, and you will spend a lot of time getting to and from your hotel.

I'd think about something more towards Midtown, or on the northwest part of town - closer to the expressway for the drive to the zoo and even IKEA (can be accessed from the expressway or from Northside Drive.

The Hampton Inn is not in walking distance to much of anything you're going to want to walk to. In the same general area, but in a much better pedestrian area would be either the JW Marriott or the Sheraton. With either you can walk to Lenox Mall (adjacent to either hotel) and walk a block to the MARTA station and get to most of the places you want to be.

As noe suggested, the Midtown area may be a better option - at least as far as traffic goes.

If you do Buckhead, look at the JWMarriott or Sheraton - or the Ritz of course! :-)

To answer your question - HORRIBLE. It took me over an hour to make a big loop in the area in December - but I thought it was just holiday shopping traffic. Well, last night we basically didn't move from Peachtree to the Hampton Inn for about 20 minutes. Finally detoured over to 400 to bypass the traffic crunch - but it was HORRIBLE in the afternoon near the Hampton Inn. I thought about your post as we sat there. You don't really want to be doing much walking from there either. Try the other options.

Thanks for the info. We just returned from Atlanta. After much debate on my part, we ended up staying at the Fairfield Inn in Buckhead. It is on Piedmont, south of Peachtree Rd. The Fairfield Inn has entrances on both Piedmont and Pace Ferry Rd., so we were able to get in and out easily. After seeing the location of the Hampton Inn and the construction on Peachtree, I was glad we picked where we did in Buckhead. It seemed that the worst traffic was on Peachtree. Alot of the restaurants recommended on Chowhound were within an easy walk from the hotel -- Antica Posta, Aria, Kyma, Fogo De Chao, Buchhead Diner. We were able to sightsee in the morning, little shopping in the afternoon, and a nice dinner in the evening. My 13 year old wallet siphon and her parents were all happy.

Good. Thanks for the update. I'm glad you had a good time and I love the description of your 13 year old. :-)