Welcome to the real-world Hawkins, the town that doesn’t actually exist!
If you have ever dreamt of driving into Hawkins with a mixtape blasting and a suspicious government van in your rearview mirror, here’s a spoiler: you would end up somewhere in Georgia, not Indiana. The Duffers built their beloved town out of Atlanta’s suburbs, old malls, abandoned schools and the occasional “beware of snakes” wilderness. 'Stranger Things' on Netflix may be set in the late eighties, but its filming locations are very much twenty-first-century road-trip material. Let’s take the scenic route, season by season.
The first two seasons created the Hawkins everyone fell in love with, even though the town itself is stitched together from several corners of Georgia. The quaint downtown with Melvald’s and the local library lives in Jackson, where the buildings quietly moonlight as Hawkins landmarks whenever the crew rolls in. The familiar family homes that shaped the early seasons sit in East Point. They look exactly as you remember them, minus the Upside Down goo leaking out of various doorways. Most interiors were recreated on studio sets, so those wallpapered, Christmas-lighted living rooms were handmade with great care and probably even greater fire hazard briefings.
Hawkins High and Middle School were shot in a former school in Stockbridge, which must be a dream assignment for any unused hallway yearning for its fifteen minutes of fame. Hopper’s station was tucked inside Douglasville’s City Hall, which is wonderfully ironic because the man barely did any paperwork in the first two seasons. Whenever the kids pedalled furiously into the woods, they were really circling through spots like Stone Mountain Park or wide stretches of land around the Georgia International Horse Park. Even Eleven’s first waffle heist took place at a real grocery store in Palmetto, and her first burger meal was filmed inside a diner in Lithia Springs. Together, these places built the Hawkins we now treat like a nostalgic holiday destination that doesn’t technically exist.
Season three tossed everyone into the fluorescent glow of Starcourt Mall, which was entirely filmed inside the once-lively Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth. The production team transformed it into a shrine of eighties consumerism, complete with neon, roller-soft ice cream, and stores that have not been seen in the wild in decades. It looked so convincing that even people who lived through the eighties felt an involuntary craving for pretzels when the episodes aired.
The Hawkins Community Pool scenes took place at an outdoor pool in Atlanta named the South Bend Pool, turning ordinary swimmers into bewildered onlookers whenever Billy strutted across the deck like it was a catwalk. And when the story spiralled into secret labs, exploding malls and interdimensional beasts, all the intense action still happened inside the bones of that once regular shopping centre. Season three basically proved that nothing ruins a mall faster than an oversized carnivorous shadow creature.
By the time the story reached season four, the show had grown so large that Hawkins could no longer contain it. Hopper’s bleak captivity was filmed inside an actual former prison in Vilnius, Lithuania. The cold airfields and snow-covered exteriors were also shot nearby, creating a surprisingly atmospheric stand-in for fictional Siberia. Meanwhile, the bright California storyline was nowhere near the Pacific coast. The Byers’ new life unfolded across Albuquerque, where neighbourhoods, roller rinks and desert roads played substitute for sunny suburban California.
The truly eerie Creel House was filmed inside a historic home in Rome, Georgia, whose real estate listing would now require a lengthy disclaimer about supernatural activity. Scenes meant to show psychiatric institutions or grand, unsettling corridors were shot around Berry College. With all these pieces stitched together, season four became a globetrotting mix of prisons, roller rinks, haunted mansions and dusty highways. It was essentially the travel-themed edition of 'Stranger Things', though with significantly higher chances of demogorgons.
The last season returned the characters to familiar terrain while sprinkling in new locations for dramatic effect. A mysterious broadcast station emerged in Chattahoochee Hills, built entirely for the show, and it looked like the sort of place conspiracy theorists would point at during late-night radio segments. Mansion scenes unfolded at a grand property in Stone Mountain, while a quiet farm in Brooks jumped into the spotlight for one of the season’s rural arcs.
College scenes featuring Dustin took place inside the ornate campus of Oglethorpe University, a fitting venue for both academic aspiration and mild supernatural dread. A charming cinema in Lavista Park set the tone for a much-talked-about date. And the Italian restaurant that once served Hopper and Joyce returned in all its cosy glory, still tucked away in Norcross. With all these spots woven together, the final season shaped a version of Hawkins that felt both familiar and slightly expanded, like the final chapter of a travelogue you didn’t realise you had been following.
1. Where was Stranger Things actually filmed?
Mostly in Georgia, across towns like Jackson, East Point, Stone Mountain and Douglasville, with later seasons expanding to Lithuania and New Mexico.
2. Is Hawkins a real town?
No, Hawkins is fictional. Its look comes from several Georgia towns stitched together to create the classic small-town vibe seen in the show.
3. Where was Starcourt Mall filmed?
Inside the Gwinnett Place Mall in Duluth, which was transformed into a full eighties-style shopping centre for season three.
4. Where were the Russia prison scenes shot?
In an actual former prison in Vilnius, Lithuania, used for both interiors and snowy exterior sequences.
5. Can fans visit these Stranger Things locations?
Many sites in Georgia—like downtown Jackson, Hopper’s station in Douglasville and the Creel House in Rome—are accessible, though some remain private property.