Five Things Worth Doing This Weekend in Fulton and Cobb

This week's guide covers two counties: Fulton and Cobb. Five things, Friday October 23 through Sunday October 25, every date, time, address and price taken off the organizer's own page rather than an aggregator. Check the link before you drive anyway. Last week a county calendar had an event marked cancelled while a newspaper listing still had it running, and the only way to know which was right was to read the source.

GreenFest 2026, Saturday October 24, 1 to 5 p.m., at the HBCU Green Fund Resilience Hub, 601 Joseph E. Boone Blvd NW, Atlanta 30314. This is the third annual GreenFest, run by the HBCU Green Fund, and the organizer describes it as a free celebration of sustainability, creativity and community. The Eventbrite listing puts the emphasis on sustainable practices, hands-on activities, local and community organizations, and connecting residents with resources, with voting and breast cancer awareness also named. Admission is free and sign-ups run through a "Get Free Tickets" button on the event page, so reserve one even though nobody is likely to turn you away at the door.

One wrinkle worth knowing before you plan around it: the Green Fund's own calendar page tags the time "UTC+0," which is almost certainly a calendar-plugin default rather than a real time zone, while the Eventbrite listing the same page links to puts the event at 1 to 5 p.m. Eastern. I would treat 1 p.m. Eastern as the start and confirm with the organizer if you are driving a long way for the opening hour. Neither page mentions parking, so plan on finding a spot on the street. Joseph E. Boone Boulevard runs west off Northside Drive through Vine City and English Avenue, blocks that have seen more public and private investment in the last decade than almost anywhere else inside the perimeter, and a Saturday afternoon on foot there is a better way to read the neighborhood than any market report I could write about it. It is a four-hour window on a short block, so it suits a stroller as easily as it suits someone who wants to talk to the vendors.

Halloween Hikes at the Chattahoochee Nature Center, 9135 Willeo Rd, Roswell 30075. Friday October 23 and Saturday October 24 from 6 to 10 p.m., Sunday October 25 from 5 to 9 p.m., with no hike or quest leaving after 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday or after 8 p.m. Sunday. Advance tickets are $25 general and $20 for members during the member presale; day-of tickets are $30 per person, which includes both the self-guided hike and the quest experiences. Entry is timed, your ticket time is your entry time, and the center asks you to arrive thirty minutes early. This is the 41st year of it, it runs rain or shine, and the center says parking is limited and advises carpooling. That last part is not boilerplate. Willeo Road is a two-lane road along the river with nowhere to overflow, so leaving fifteen minutes earlier than feels necessary is the whole difference between a calm start and a bad one.

Cobb County's Fall Festival of Fun, Saturday October 24, 5 to 9 p.m., at Jim R. Miller Park and Event Center, 2245 Callaway Rd SW, Marietta 30008. Admission is free and open to the public, parking is free in the main lot with overflow in the North Lot on Al Bishop Drive, and the county runs a shuttle for guests with disabilities. The county's description names hay rides, a petting zoo, magic shows and costumes. On the same nights, in the same park, the county runs a Haunted House from 5 to 9 p.m. on both Saturday October 24 and Sunday October 25 at $5 per person, bought on site rather than in advance. That combination is the practical reason to put this at the top of a family Saturday: the festival is free, the scare is five dollars and optional, and you are not committed to either when you park.

Cobb County Public Safety's Trunk-or-Treat and Fall Festival, Saturday October 24, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at the Emergency Vehicle Operations Course, 1285 Al Bishop Drive, Marietta. It is free, costumes are encouraged, and it sits on the same stretch of Al Bishop Drive that serves Miller Park's overflow lot next door. Neither source says registration is required. Worth saying plainly what this gives you: an 11 a.m. start and a 2 p.m. finish, in the same corner of south Marietta you would come back to at 5 for the Fall Festival. If you have small kids, doing both in one day with a nap in between is more realistic than it sounds.

The Crafts & Drafts Festival in downtown Smyrna, Saturday October 24 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday October 25 from noon to 5 p.m., at the Smyrna Village Green, 200 Village Green Cir SE, Smyrna 30080. Admission is free. Cobb Travel & Tourism and the festival's own listing both describe 150 arts and crafts booths, twelve food booths, children's activities and football on the big screens, with live music named by the tourism listing. This is the fall version of what used to be the Jonquil Festival. The organizers publish driving directions rather than a parking plan, which tells you something: take I-75 to exit 260, Windy Hill Road west about three miles, left on Atlanta Road, and the festival is a mile up on the right. The Village Green sits in the middle of Smyrna's Market Village, which is the most genuinely walkable half-mile in Cobb County, so once you have parked you can get a coffee, do the booths and sit down to eat without moving the car again. Of everything on this list, it is the one where the setting is as much of the point as the event.

If I were picking one, it would be GreenFest. The Cobb events are the better bet with young children and Crafts & Drafts is the easiest afternoon of the five, but a free four-hour Saturday on Joseph E. Boone Boulevard is the kind of thing people who live two counties away never do, and it is the only item here that will tell you something about a part of Atlanta most buyers have an opinion about without having stood in it. Go at one, give it ninety minutes, and you will still be in Marietta by five if you want the festival too.