Atlanta or Daytona Beach?

This is Daytona's whole reason for being. Its 37km of hard, flat sand is wide enough to drive on in places, with busier stretches by the pier and quieter ones at Ormond Beach, Ponce Inlet and New Smyrna Beach. The water is greenish and the surf can be rough, so lifeguarded zones matter.

Atlanta has nothing comparable. The coast is four to five hours away, and the nearest swimming is at Lake Lanier or Lake Allatoona, pleasant summer lake days but no substitute for the sea.

Atlanta is the place to eat well. Its Southern cooking, from meat-and-three cafeterias to west-side soul food and smoked barbecue, is the real thing, and the strip malls of Buford Highway add Korean, Vietnamese, Ethiopian and Mexican kitchens cooking for their own communities.

Daytona's best meals are simpler: fried shrimp, grouper sandwiches and smoked fish dip eaten on the decks of old fish camps along the Halifax River. Away from the water, chain restaurants dominate.

Atlanta carries far more historical weight. King's birth home, Ebenezer Baptist Church and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights make it one of the key places to understand the civil rights movement, and the High Museum and Atlanta History Center fill out two or three busy days.

Daytona's sights centre on speed: tours of the Speedway and the story of land-speed records set on the beach itself. Add the Cuban art at the Museum of Arts and Sciences and a climb up the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse, and most visitors are done in a day or two.

Atlanta has the bigger and more varied night out: big clubs playing the hip-hop and trap the city is famous for, dive bars and small dance floors on Edgewood Avenue, a large LGBTQ scene in Midtown and dressier lounges in Buckhead. Each area is a separate pocket, though, so plan on rides between them.

Daytona's evenings are tiki bars at sunset, sports bars and the biker saloons of Main Street, which fill up during Bike Week, Biketoberfest and race weeks and stay quiet the rest of the year. Dancing and cocktails are thin on the ground.

The two are fairly level, but the landscapes could hardly be more different. Atlanta offers height and forest: the granite dome of Stone Mountain, Kennesaw's battlefield trails, tubing on the Chattahoochee and, two hours north, the Blue Ridge foothills with Amicalola Falls and the start of the Appalachian Trail.

Daytona is flat and full of water and wildlife. You can paddle the Mosquito Lagoon among dolphins, watch birds at Merritt Island, see manatees at Blue Spring in winter or surf near Ponce Inlet. Choose Atlanta for hiking, Daytona for kayaking and wildlife.

Daytona is the better base for outings, with three big names each about an hour away: St Augustine's Spanish fort and old streets, the rockets at Kennedy Space Center and the Orlando theme parks. Gentler days in Winter Park, DeLand and New Smyrna Beach add variety.

From Atlanta the nearby trips are pleasant but smaller: the college town of Athens, the gold-rush square at Dahlonega, Madison's pre-Civil War houses and Chattanooga's riverfront. Savannah, the most famous of them, is too far for a day.

Atlanta gives children more to see and do. The Georgia Aquarium's whale sharks and belugas, the gorillas at Zoo Atlanta, the dinosaurs at Fernbank and the shows at the Center for Puppetry Arts can fill several days, with Six Flags and Stone Mountain on the edges. The drawback is the driving between them.

Daytona works best as a simple beach stay: wide sand, arcades and ice cream by the boardwalk, condos with pools and Orlando's parks an hour away. Rip currents and the noise of event weeks need watching.

Both cities expect you to drive, but Atlanta at least gives a visitor some choice. A hotel along the MARTA line puts the airport, downtown, Midtown and Buckhead within reach by train, and the BeltLine's Eastside Trail links several neighbourhoods on foot.

In Daytona the buses are too sparse to rely on, and only the beach itself and the area around the boardwalk are easy on foot or by bike. Everything else, including the state parks and every day trip, means a car.

Atlanta has the stronger shopping, mostly in malls. Buckhead's two big malls on Peachtree Road and the boutiques of Buckhead Village cover luxury labels, while Little Five Points has vintage clothing and records with some character.

Daytona keeps it practical: an outlet centre, a regional mall, beachwear shops and the motorcycle gear of Main Street, with a few galleries on Beach Street. Neither city is worth the trip for shopping alone.

Daytona comes out slightly cheaper. Older oceanfront motels, condo rentals and casual seafood keep costs reasonable, as long as you avoid the Daytona 500 and Bike Week, when room rates jump.

Atlanta is reasonable for a large American city, with hotels well below coastal levels outside Buckhead and convention weeks, and the civil rights sites are free. Entry to the big family attractions adds up quickly, though. In both places, car hire, tax and tipping are part of the bill.

Atlanta has a full performing arts scene. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Alliance Theatre share the Woodruff Arts Center, the opera and ballet run full seasons, and the 1920s Fox Theatre hosts touring Broadway shows. As a centre of hip-hop, R&B and gospel, the city also brings in major tours, with the Tabernacle and smaller rooms in between.

Daytona's offer is a short calendar: a winter series of visiting orchestras, touring shows at the Peabody Auditorium, a community playhouse and free summer concerts at the oceanfront bandshell.

Neither is a place people come to unwind, but each offers its own kind of rest. Atlanta's distinctive option is the big Korean-style bathhouses in the northeastern suburbs, with hot and cold pools and lounging halls, though the traffic getting there is anything but calm.

Daytona has no bathing tradition beyond resort spas, but it has the easy pace of a beach town: early walks on the firm sand and afternoons by a pool. That calm disappears in race weeks and Bike Week.