8 Quirkiest Georgia Towns To Visit In 2025

As a Deep South state with a unique culture and history, Georgia is already considered quirky. But if you have never visited Georgia—or visited only its biggest cities—you have not seen anything yet. In its small, secluded towns are attractions that, while odd, are definitely worth exploring. They range from a modern moonshine distillery to a presidential peanut statue to a New Year's Eve possum drop. Put these Georgian oddities on your mind and calendar in 2025.

Vienna

You can sum up Vienna in three words: BIG PIG JIG. Of course, this Vienna is in Georgia, and BIG PIG JIG is the name of a quirky Vienna, Georgia attraction. In 1982, local gourmets conceived a cook-off to see who could barbecue the most succulent pork. This was combined with an arts and crafts fair and hog show for the first BIG PIG JIG. Eighteen teams competed in the inaugural cook-off with the top seven splitting $1,000 in prize money. Over 40 years later, this rhyming swine time spans two November days and involves roughly 100 teams, $17,000 in prize money, and hundreds of pounds of pork shoulders, ribs, and entire hogs. While attending the fest, be sure to check out other Vienna oddities like the Vienna Murals and the Georgia State Cotton Museum (if open).

Harlem

Oliver Hardy was one-half of the Classic Hollywood comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. Thirty-two years after his death, his birthtown, Harlem, GA, held an Oliver Hardy Festival. Thirty-six years after that, the Harlem Oliver Hardy Festival is still running as one of the strangest events in Georgia. For one October day, over 10,000 people flood pint-sized Harlem to eat, drink, shop, dress as Hardy, and watch Hardy movies and Hardy-inspired performances. They also view the unique displays at The Laurel & Hardy Museum of Harlem. 2025's edition is set for Saturday, October 4. Are you Hardy enough for it?

Cordele

Though Georgia is the Peach State, it grows and celebrates many other kinds of fruit. One of those is watermelon, which is abundant in Cordele, a small city dubbed the "Watermelon Capital of the World." For 76 years, Cordele has hosted the Watermelon Days Festival. Although the main part of the fest—comprising a watermelon eating contest, watermelon seed spitting contest, watermelon parade, etc.—runs in late June, activities like the watermelon window decorating contest began in May. Another non-peach fruit celebrated in Georgia is the apple, especially at Ellijay's Georgia Apple Festival. It is scheduled to run on October 11, 12, 18, and 19.

Dawsonville

Dawsonville has two unique claims to fame: the birthplace of stockcar racing and the capital of moonshine. You can verify the former by watching or joining races at the Atlanta Motorsports Park along with touring the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame. You can verify the latter by visiting Grandaddy Mimm's Distilling Co., a moonshine distillery named for legendary moonshiner Jack “Mimm” McClure. Verify both at the Mountain Moonshine Festival and Car Show, which, in addition to the titular car show, features a moonshine run where cars travel through the North Georgia mountains along historic moonshining routes. The festival's 58th edition is slated for October 24, 25, and 26.

Byron

Unsurprisingly, Georgia has a number of peach-themed attractions. Some of those are festivals, the most famous of which covers two small cities in Peach County. The Georgia Peach Festival runs in June between Fort Valley and Byron. When you read this, Fort Valley's festivities, which include competitive peach eating and baking the "World's Largest Peach Cobbler," will likely have passed, but Byron's activities should be there for the pickin'. The Byron portion is to run on Saturday, June 14, and feature vendors and musicians at North Peach Park. Other peachy places to visit in Byron are the Big Peach Antiques Mall, which sells a variety of items in a 33,000-square-foot space, and Barbour Farms, which peddles its peach-based products at the festival and from its own country store.

Plains

Plains would be pretty plain if it were not for Jimmy Carter and peanuts. Yes, those disparate things mix in this Georgian micro-city. Just over 500 people call Plains home, yet so did the 39th U.S. president, who was born, grew up, and grew and sold peanuts there. He was not the only resident to peddle peanuts because, almost 100 years later, Plains hosts the Plains Peanut Festival. On Saturday, September 27, you can attend the fest and admire Carter attractions like the Boyhood Home & Farm and the Plains High School Visitor Center, both of which are part of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park. Also see the nuttiest sight: a 13-foot peanut statue with Carter's smiling mouth.

Helen

Helen looks as if a Bavarian Alps village got lost in North Georgia. Yet Helen's Germanness is a deliberate style conceived by officials in 1969. By the end of that year, they had transformed many old storefronts into storybooklike attractions. That venture, which continues to this day, "changed a dying lumber town into Georgia's third most visited city." In 2025, you can stay at the Uhuburg Castle, snack at the Hansel and Gretel Candy Kitchen, dine at the Hofbrauhaus Restaurant, and play at Bavarian Mountain Miniature Golf. If visiting in fall, attend Helen Oktoberfest, which normally runs in September and October but is scheduled to stretch into November for its 55th anniversary.

Tallapoosa

Instead of a ball, various oddities are dropped by Georgian towns during New Year's Eve. Tifton drops a gnat. Perry drops a buzzard. And Tallapoosa drops a possum. Unlike the first two, Tallapoosa's plummeting critter is real, albeit dead. It was found by the side of the road in the mid-90s, taxidermied, named Spencer, and has centered Tallapoosa's New Year's Eve celebration for decades. Just over 3,000 people inhabit the town, but around 13,000 celebrate with Spencer and enjoy food, drinks, merchandise, live music, fireworks, and carnival rides. Believe it or not, Clay County, North Carolina, also dropped a possum—a live possum—but stopped in 2019 due to animal rights concerns.

There is plenty of time left to explore offbeat Georgia in 2025. Start with Byron's Peach Festival in mid-June, swap fruits in late June at Cordele's Watermelon Festival, see various small-town oddities during summer, roll into the Plains Peanut Festival in September, attend Helen Oktoberfest in October, pig out at Vienna's BIG PIG JIG in November, and finish the year at Tallapoosa's Possum Drop. Even if you cannot make every event, pick at least one for a unique taste of the Peach State.