We go from Virginia to Louisiana to visit relatives and hate the Atlanta mess. We have tried everything and the best we come up with is for us to stop before Atlanta and stay in a motel overnight, then leave really early in the morning, say 4 AM and take the ring road around the city. We do the same thing coming home. Once we decided to go to the other side of Atlanta to stay the night and we ended up driving west as the sun was setting - not a good idea!