Atlanta or St. Pete Beach?

Here there is no contest. Atlanta sits inland, four to five hours' drive from either coast, and swimming there means the reservoirs at Lake Lanier or Lake Allatoona. They're fine on a hot weekend, but they're no seaside.

St. Pete Beach is built around a long strip of pale quartz sand and shallow Gulf water with little surf. Pass-a-Grille faces the sunset, Upham Beach is quieter, and Fort De Soto and Shell Key add wilder, emptier sand nearby.

Atlanta is the stronger place to eat by some distance. It serves Southern food where it belongs, from meat-and-three cafeterias to smoked barbecue and serious Sunday brunch. Buford Highway adds a long run of Korean, Vietnamese, Mexican and Ethiopian kitchens.

St. Pete Beach keeps food simple and close to the water: grouper sandwiches, fried shrimp and stone crab claws in season, eaten on a deck at sunset. Beyond that the choice thins out into chains along Gulf Boulevard, and for ambitious cooking you drive to St. Petersburg.

Atlanta lost most of its old townscape in 1864, but its civil rights heritage gives it real depth. There are the King birth home and Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue and the civil rights centre downtown, plus the High Museum and the Carter Presidential Library. That adds up to two or three full days.

St. Pete Beach offers a morning at most: the pink Don CeSar, Pass-a-Grille's old beach cottages and the Spanish-American War batteries at Fort De Soto. For serious museums you cross to St. Petersburg.

Atlanta goes out late and on a large scale. Its clubs play the hip-hop and trap the city exports, Edgewood Avenue has dive bars, Midtown has one of the South's largest LGBTQ scenes and Buckhead has dressy lounges. Each area is a separate pocket, so plan on taking rides between them.

In St. Pete Beach the evening peaks at sunset, with tiki decks and cover bands, and most visitors turn in not long after dark. There's no club scene, and a bigger night means going to downtown St. Petersburg.

The two are evenly matched outdoors, but in very different ways. Atlanta is hills and hardwood forest: the granite dome of Stone Mountain, the wooded bluffs of the Chattahoochee and, two hours north, the Blue Ridge foothills and the southern end of the Appalachian Trail.

St. Pete Beach is flat and watery. You spend your time paddling the mangrove trails at Fort De Soto, watching dolphins, manatees and roseate spoonbills, or fishing from the piers. Hikers will prefer Atlanta, while paddlers and birdwatchers will prefer the coast.

St. Pete Beach has a slightly better range of outings. St. Petersburg's Dalí Museum is half an hour away and Tampa's Ybor City is under an hour. Tarpon Springs, Sarasota's Ringling estate and Anna Maria Island each make a different kind of day out.

Atlanta's nearby towns are pleasant rather than famous: the college town of Athens, gold-rush Dahlonega, the pre-Civil War houses of Madison and Chattanooga's riverfront. Savannah, the one big name, is too far for a day trip.

Both work well with children, in different ways. Atlanta is a city of big attractions: the Georgia Aquarium's whale sharks, Zoo Atlanta's gorillas, Fernbank's dinosaurs, the puppetry centre and Six Flags. You reach all of them by car through heavy traffic.

St. Pete Beach is simpler, built around shallow calm water, soft sand and hotel pools, with dolphin boats and shelling on Shell Key for a change of pace. In both places, summer heat means planning the day around the cooler hours.

Neither is easy without a car. In Atlanta, MARTA trains cover one useful line from the airport through downtown and Midtown to Buckhead, and the BeltLine links a few neighbourhoods on foot. Most restaurants and sights beyond that are spread across a sprawling, congested metro area.

Once you're there, St. Pete Beach is small enough to manage with the beach trolley, a bike and your own feet. You need the car to leave the island, since Fort De Soto, St. Petersburg and Tampa are all drives away and the buses are slow.

Atlanta has far more to shop for. Buckhead gives it what the beach town has no equivalent of: department stores, luxury labels and designer boutiques. Little Five Points adds vintage clothing and record shops, so a full day of browsing is easy, even if little of it is unique to the city.

St. Pete Beach is good for a swimsuit, beach gear or a piece from one of the small galleries on Corey Avenue, and not much more. Anything bigger means driving inland to St. Petersburg or Tampa.

Atlanta is the cheaper stay, and most of the difference is the hotel bill. A city room outside Buckhead costs less than a room on the Gulf, where beachfront rates are highest from February to April as visitors arrive from the cold north. Atlanta also has more ways to eat well for little, with soul food kitchens and the Buford Highway restaurants, while in the beach town the choice is mostly seafood shacks and resort dining.

Some costs are the same in both. You will probably need a hire car either way, and tax and tips go on every meal. Atlanta's big family attractions charge steep entry, so a week of aquarium and theme park visits makes up some of what you save on the room. In St. Pete Beach, a late-summer stay in a motel set back from the front does the same from the other direction. Each has its free highlight: the King sites in Atlanta and the sand itself on the Gulf.

Atlanta has a full cultural calendar. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra plays at the Woodruff Arts Center, the Alliance Theatre stages new work, opera and ballet run full seasons, and touring Broadway shows come to the Fox Theatre. Its place in hip-hop, R&B and gospel brings major tours, and the Tabernacle and smaller rooms in Little Five Points cover the mid-sized and smaller acts.

In St. Pete Beach, live performance means cover bands and acoustic sets at beach bars. For a proper night out you drive to the Florida Orchestra in St. Petersburg or to Tampa's performing arts centre.

St. Pete Beach is the more restful choice, less for its spas than for its pace. The day runs from a morning walk on the sand to a slow afternoon, and everyone stops to watch the sunset. Pass-a-Grille is the calmest corner, and the resort spas cover treatments.

Atlanta's best offer is an unusual one: the Korean-style bathhouses in the northeastern suburbs, with hot and cold pools and sauna rooms. Otherwise, traffic, sprawl and humid summers make it a hard place to unwind.