Today we’d like to introduce you to Akila McConnell.
To an outside observer, she had it all. A graduate of Emory University in Atlanta and Duke University School of Law, Akila McConnell was well on her way to an impressive legal career in 2009. After several years at a prominent law firm, she began clerking for a renowned federal judge. But it just wasn’t enough.
“At the end of it, I just said to myself, I don’t love this,” she admitted. “It’s not my passion. I should be doing my passion.” So she and her husband quit their corporate lives and began traveling the world. With a long-standing passion for food and the stories and culture around it, she soon began writing about her culinary adventures abroad.
Her posts were noticed and picked up by various media outlets, including the LA Times, About.com, and Conde Nast. “For three and a half years I wrote about food and travel, and I did a number of food tours in my journeys,” said Akila. “But when I returned home to Atlanta, I wondered why isn’t anyone doing food tours here and delving into the history and culture of the cuisine and what means to the city.”
Out of this was born Atlanta Food Walks, which has in just four years grown into Atlanta’s #1 rated food tour and Atlanta’s #1 rated walking tour, featured by the Sydney Herald Sun as one of the top 50 day tours in the world, and by National Geographic Traveller as the best tour to discover the city.
In 2019, Akila expanded Atlanta Food Walks to add Atlanta History Tours, which focuses on telling the unexpected history of Atlanta. The company was rebranded in 2019 to focus on its strength — storytelling in unexpected places in the city — resulting in the now-rebranded Unexpected Atlanta Walking Tours & Stories.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
It’s never a smooth road! One of the biggest challenges was my approach. I believed that we needed to get people off the beaten path, into areas they would never explore on their own, like South Downtown and the Sweet Auburn neighborhood. These are neighborhoods that are critically important to the city but often ignored as “dangerous” or “rough.”
Our goal is to bring people into these neighborhoods in a safe way. Convincing people that getting off the usual — away from Buckhead or Ponce City Market — that’s been a challenge. And, convincing people that Downtown is worth seeing and worth exploring has also been a challenge. But, I think that’s the reason we have also succeeded because we help people see beyond the usual in these neighborhoods with so much rich and important history.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Unexpected Atlanta Walking Tours story. Tell us more about the business.
Our company is Unexpected Atlanta Walking Tours & Stories. We offer Atlanta Food Walks and Atlanta History Tours. Our specialty is in helping locals and visitors discover the unexpected spots in this city through fantastic storytelling.
We are so proud of the way in which we showcase this city and turn people who might think Downtown isn’t worth exploring into making it their very favorite part of our trip. We love the fact that we can bring even locals who have lived in the city for 30+ years to places they’ve never discovered before.
And, what sets us apart from the rest is our incredibly detailed, accurate, and exceptional storytelling. We spend close to a year developing every new tour (which is why we only have three tours), intricately researching every aspect of the tour, and ensuring that we are serving the absolutely best possible food on our food walks.
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I’m not a huge believer in luck; luck is an event that happens to someone by chance. I believe more in serendipity — serendipity means an unsought event that happens — and then we have to turn those serendipitous moments into a positive result. I try to always look for those moments of serendipity.
One of the most serendipitous moments for me was my choice to quit my job to travel around the world; it happened because I heard a radio station where a woman quit her job to travel the world, and I went home that night and told my husband that “We have to do that.”
Serendipity often occurs when I am working on creating a tour, as well, whether it’s finding the right restaurant partner or finding the perfect historical fact, or even hiring the right person. I think serendipity is always around and we have to be open to accepting it and taking advantage of those serendipitous events in both our personal life as well as our business.
Pricing:
- Downtown Southern Food Walk – $75 – https://atlantafoodwalks.com/tours/downtown-southern-food-walk/
- Grant Park Past & Future Food Walk – $75 – https://atlantafoodwalks.com/tours/grant-park-past-future-food-walk/
- King Historic District Tour – $25 – https://atlantahistorytours.com/king-historic-district-tour/
Contact Info:
- Website: http://unexpectedatlanta.com
- Phone: 470-223-2203
- Email: info@unexpectedatlanta.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unexpectedatl/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unexpectedATL/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/unexpectedatl
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/unexpected-atlanta-walking-tours-atlanta
- Other: https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g60898-d7987950-Reviews-Unexpected_Atlanta_Walking_Tours-Atlanta_Georgia.html
Getting in touch: VoyageATL is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
