I live in the Atlanta area. I can't tell you much about downtown Atlanta, as I'm a suburbanite, but what questions do you have about living here? My office is in Lawrenceville, it's a very nice area.
I'd start with asking you what type of town are you looking to live in? Do you want big city feel? Do you want a crowded suburb? Do you want a more rural setting? Atlanta, like many big cities, has a lot of sprawl. So for example, Lawrenceville is quite nice...very nice in fact, but it's fairly densely populated. Not inner city populated, but crowded suburb populated. If you want a less crowded feel, you'll need to get farther away from the city. I live in the northwest suburbs, in a town called Acworth. We're far less densely populated than other suburbs, but I'm also about a 50-60 minute drive from the airport...without traffic.
Speaking of traffic, I know a lot of people make a big deal of Atlanta traffic. Having spent the first 40+ years of my life in the Philadelphia area, I'll tell you that traffic here isn't a ton worse than any other major city. In other words, we have some pretty gnarly traffic during rush hours, but it's no different than Philly, NYC, DC, Boston, LA, etc... In the heart of rush hour it could take you an hour to go 15-20 miles, depending on where you are and where you're going, but that would only be if you're in the very worst of it at the very worst time. My commute is 60 miles each way, using the major highways around here. In the morning I can do it in an hour, because I leave so early. In the afternoon, leaving my office around 3:30pm, it takes me between 70-85 minutes depending on traffic. Right now I work from home full time due to COVID, but even under normal circumstances, I only commute twice per week.
Weather here is typical southern stuff. Summer days average around 90 degrees, and it can be quite humid. Winter here can get relatively cold, but nothing like up north. We moved here to get out of the Philly area blizzards and cold. In the winter, the average high is probably 50 degrees. Having said that, there are days where it could reach 70, and then there will be some days where the high is only in the upper 30s or low 40s. I've been here 6 years now and only seen it truly "snow" once. We got a freak storm that dumped 8" of snow on my house, which was an all time historic records...as in the record for the most snow in the recorded history of my town. Beyond that, we may see som flurries once or twice a year and that's it. Snow is truly a 4 letter word here. It almost never happens, and when it even threatens to snow, everyone panics. Summer t-storms are common, in fact it's storming as I type this. But they'll come and they'll go quickly, usually. The sun in the summer is really brutal, I melt pretty quick in the middle of a July or August afternoon. You'll get a nasty burn pretty quick if you're fair skinned like me. At the summer solstice it won't get completely dark until about 9:30pm, which is pretty cool.
Depending on where you look, real estate can be quite inexpensive here, as are property taxes (at least compared to where I came from). You can get a 2200-2500 sq ft 3-4 bedroom typical suburban home for $250,000. Some areas you may get it a bit cheaper, some areas you may pay a good bit more. It really depends on where you look. For example, Lawrenceville it would probably cost you a bit more. I think, though I'm not sure, the southern suburbs of Atlanta are a bit less expensive, as they don't have quite the sprawl that the northern suburbs do. The farther south you go, the hotter it gets. I don't know that the southern neighborhoods are all the best neighborhoods, but I don't know much about that area.
Good race tracks down here. Road Atlanta, which is in the northeast suburbs, is a must do race track if you're into that. It's amaze-balls. I love it. Altanta Motorsports Park, another good road course, is also in the northeast 'burbs. Atlanta Motorspeedway is in the southern suburbs.
Let me know what specific questions you have and I'll do what I can to answer. Oh, we seem to have a lot of good cars on Craigslist too....
If you're going to spend 4 days here with the perspective of maybe moving here, I'd spend the days in the neighborhoods you're interested in. Drive around at rush hour and experience it for yourself. Drive into neighborhoods and ask people you see walking around what it's like there. They'll tell you. Drive from the neighborhood to the local grocery store...heck, just find the local grocery store, the local mall, the local Home Depot. Get a "lay of the land". Since you have 4 days, check out several different suburbs that way. Do a bunch of house tours, even if you don't intend to buy any of them, so you can see what you're money will buy for you. Don't focus on sightseeing, you can do that after you move here. Focus on the towns and neighborhoods where you'd want to live and work.
