My recommendation would be to find a local instance - one that's closest to you - and sign up for that. I'm not in Atlanta, but I am in Georgia, so I signed up for the yall.theatl.social instance (the server is in Atlanta), and I couldn't be happier. It's a smaller instance, but I converse regularly with the admins when I have a question or a problem, and they are accessible and always open to suggestions.

I like it so much that I also use the theatl.social Mastodon instance as my main Mastodon as well. I throw them a few bucks every month to help with costs, and I'm happy to do it.

I would agree with those who say smaller instances are the way to go.