Atlanta or Gulf Shores?

There is no contest here. Atlanta sits inland on the Piedmont plateau, hours from either coast, so swimming means Lake Lanier or Lake Allatoona on a hot weekend, or the hotel pool.

Gulf Shores exists because of its beach. Fine white sand runs unbroken from Fort Morgan to the Florida line, low dunes back it in Gulf State Park, and the water is warm and green through summer. Watch the flags for rip currents.

Atlanta offers far more range at the table. Southern cooking in meat-and-threes and west-side soul food kitchens sits alongside the Korean, Vietnamese and Ethiopian restaurants of Buford Highway, plus chef-led rooms in Inman Park and the Westside.

Gulf Shores does one thing well: Gulf seafood eaten casually, from Royal Red shrimp to chargrilled oysters and gumbo, at open-air shacks with water views. Buying fresh shrimp to cook in the condo is part of the fun, but beyond seafood there is little choice.

Atlanta has much the weightier sights, even though little of its old townscape survived 1864. King's birth home and Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, the High Museum and the Carter Presidential Library fill two or three good days.

At Gulf Shores the sightseeing comes down to Fort Morgan, a brick star fort that played its part in the Battle of Mobile Bay, and a small local museum. That is a morning's worth.

Atlanta has a real night out, with big hip-hop clubs, the dive bars and small dance floors of Edgewood Avenue, Midtown's large LGBTQ scene and the bottle-service lounges of Buckhead. The catch is that each area is a separate pocket, so you need a ride to get from one to the next.

Gulf Shores is beach-bar country: sand-floored decks, frozen drinks and the famous roadhouse at the state line, which stays loud late. It is fun in flip-flops, but there are no clubs or cocktail bars, and most of the town is asleep early.

The landscapes could hardly be more different, and Atlanta has more variety within reach. The granite dome of Stone Mountain, Kennesaw's battlefield trails and the Chattahoochee's wooded bluffs are all within half an hour. About two hours north are the Blue Ridge foothills, Amicalola Falls and the southern end of the Appalachian Trail.

Gulf Shores is flat and watery, and its outdoors is about the bays and the sea. You can cycle Gulf State Park's trails, watch migrating birds at the western end, take dolphin cruises or deep-sea fishing trips, and kayak the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. There are no hills at all.

Both cities have pleasant outings rather than famous ones, and both need a car. From Atlanta you head inland: the college town of Athens, gold-rush Dahlonega among its vineyards, the antebellum houses of Madison and Chattanooga's riverfront two hours north.

From Gulf Shores you follow the coast instead. Options include Mobile's ironwork balconies and the USS Alabama, bayside Fairhope, Pensacola's naval aviation museum and the car ferry across Mobile Bay to Dauphin Island, most of them within about an hour.

Both work well with children, in opposite ways. Atlanta is a city of big attractions: the Georgia Aquarium's whale sharks, Zoo Atlanta's gorillas, Fernbank's dinosaurs, the Center for Puppetry Arts and Six Flags, with plenty of driving and traffic in between.

Gulf Shores is a whole resort built around families, with condos, pools and soft sand, plus a water park and the Orange Beach Ferris wheel for off days. It has no major aquarium, though, and children need watching in the surf.

You will want a car in both, but Atlanta at least has a spine. MARTA rail links the airport, downtown, Midtown and Buckhead, and the BeltLine's Eastside Trail joins several walkable neighbourhoods.

Gulf Shores has almost no public transport. The resort stretches for miles along one beach road, so walking only works within your own stretch of sand, and bikes are mainly useful inside Gulf State Park.

Atlanta has much more to shop for: the luxury malls facing each other on Peachtree Road, designer boutiques in Buckhead Village, and vintage clothing and record shops in Little Five Points. In Gulf Shores it is beachwear emporiums, surf and fishing shops and the big outlet mall in Foley, which is best saved for a rainy day.

Overall costs come out similar, but they fall differently. Atlanta's hotel rooms cost less than on either coast, Buford Highway is good value and the civil rights sites are free. Car hire, parking and family attraction tickets are what add up.

In Gulf Shores, costs swing with the season. Beachfront condos are expensive in June and July and much cheaper in winter and the shoulder months. The beach and the state park trails cost nothing, and cooking in the condo keeps meals cheap.

Atlanta has a full performing arts calendar. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra plays at the Woodruff Arts Center, the Alliance Theatre stages new plays, the opera and ballet run full seasons, and the Fox Theatre hosts Broadway tours. Major hip-hop, R&B and gospel tours come through the arenas too.

Gulf Shores has bands playing daily on beach-bar stages, a long-running November songwriters' festival at the state-line roadhouse, and touring country and rock acts at the Orange Beach amphitheatre. For a symphony or a play you drive an hour to Mobile.

Neither is a place for a retreat, and the kind of rest each offers differs. Atlanta's most distinctive option is its large Korean-style bathhouses, about half an hour out along the northeastern motorways, with hot and cold pools and sauna rooms. Even so, the traffic and humid summers work against unwinding.

Gulf Shores has only a few resort and day spas. What it has instead is a slow, early-to-bed pace, and that, with sunsets from a condo balcony, is what many visitors come for.