Atlanta or West Palm Beach?

Atlanta sits inland on the Piedmont plateau, and its swimming means a summer day at Lake Lanier or Lake Allatoona or a hotel pool. Neither the Atlantic nor the Gulf is close enough for a day trip.

West Palm Beach is built around the sea. Midtown Beach and Phipps Ocean Park on Palm Beach, the broader sands of Singer Island and Juno, and the sheltered lagoon at Peanut Island are all a short hop from downtown. Because the Gulf Stream runs close to this coast, the water stays warm enough to swim in all year.

Atlanta is a place to eat with purpose. Fried chicken, shrimp and grits and smoked barbecue are served in meat-and-three cafeterias and west-side soul food kitchens, and Buford Highway's strip malls are lined with Korean, Vietnamese, Ethiopian and Mexican cooking aimed at their own communities. The catch is that you need a car to reach most of it.

West Palm Beach eats well but more simply. The highlight is grilled Florida fish and stone crab claws in season, eaten on the terraces around Clematis Street or in the clubby dining rooms of Palm Beach, with Cuban and Haitian bakeries further from the centre. It is good for a long lunch, but there is less food culture to explore.

Atlanta's sights carry more weight. The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park on Auburn Avenue and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights make it one of the essential places for understanding the civil rights movement. The High Museum, the Atlanta History Center and the Carter Library add depth, even though the 1864 burning left little old townscape.

West Palm Beach has the elegant Norton Museum and Flagler's marble Whitehall, which tells the railway story of the Florida coast. Its stronger card is atmosphere, with the Mediterranean Revival villas and Worth Avenue's courtyards making Palm Beach a fine afternoon's stroll. Both fill two or three days, but Atlanta's days teach you more.

Atlanta has a nightlife with a national name. Big clubs play the trap and hip-hop the city exports, Edgewood Avenue crams dive bars and small dance floors into a few blocks, Midtown anchors one of the South's largest LGBTQ scenes, and Buckhead does bottle service. Each area is its own pocket, so plan on a ride between them.

West Palm Beach goes out on Clematis Street and around Rosemary Square, with cocktail bars, rooftops and a couple of dance spots that fill at weekends. It goes quiet on weeknights and through summer, and anyone after serious clubbing heads down the coast to Miami.

These two are about even outdoors, but the settings could hardly differ more. Atlanta is green and rolling, with a deep hardwood canopy, the granite dome of Stone Mountain, Kennesaw's battlefield trails and floats on the Chattahoochee, and real hiking two hours north in the Blue Ridge foothills and on the start of the Appalachian Trail.

West Palm Beach is flat and watery. You can paddle the lagoon, snorkel with seahorses under the Blue Heron Bridge, dive the Gulf Stream reefs, see alligators from the boardwalks at Loxahatchee and watch turtle nesting on the Jupiter beaches. Hikers will prefer Atlanta in spring or autumn, while anyone who wants to be in the water will prefer the coast.

Neither city has an outstanding ring of excursions, and they differ mainly in how you travel and what you see. From Atlanta every outing needs a car, but the scenery changes: the college town of Athens, the gold-rush square at Dahlonega among the vineyards, Madison's antebellum houses and Chattanooga's riverfront and Lookout Mountain.

West Palm Beach has one big draw that needs no car, Miami, about an hour away by fast train, with South Beach, Little Havana and Wynwood. The rest, from Delray Beach and Boca Raton to Jupiter's lighthouse, are pleasant coastal towns that feel much like the place you left.

Both work well with children, in different ways. Atlanta is a city of big attractions: whale sharks and belugas at the Georgia Aquarium, gorillas at Zoo Atlanta, Fernbank's dinosaurs, the Center for Puppetry Arts and the roller coasters at Six Flags. It suits families who want a full programme of activities more than lazy days.

West Palm Beach is a beach vacation first, with calm water at Peanut Island and guarded sands on Singer Island, plus Lion Country Safari and the manatees at Manatee Lagoon in winter. There is no big theme park nearby, and both places mean driving between outings and coping with summer heat.

West Palm Beach is the easier of the two, though neither is truly simple without wheels. Its downtown is flat and compact, a free trolley links the waterfront with Clematis Street, cycling over the bridges to Palm Beach is pleasant, and trains run south to Miami. The beaches and parks further out still call for a car.

Atlanta's MARTA rail covers one useful line from the airport through downtown and Midtown to Buckhead, and the BeltLine's Eastside Trail joins a few walkable districts. Beyond that, the sprawling, hilly metro area, rush-hour traffic and missing pavements make a car or ride-hailing app close to essential.

West Palm Beach has a shopping street worth visiting for its own sake. Worth Avenue's palm-lined row of jewellers and fashion houses, its tiled vias and the consignment shops selling the island's cast-off designer clothes make a good outing, and Antique Row on South Dixie Highway rewards a slow afternoon.

Atlanta shops mainly in malls, with the luxury labels concentrated in Buckhead's pair of malls on Peachtree Road. Little Five Points, with its vintage clothing and record shops, is the more characterful stop. The range is wide, but there is little you could not find in other American cities.

Atlanta is the more forgiving on cost. Hotel rooms outside Buckhead cost well below coastal rates, a plate of Southern cooking or a bowl of pho on Buford Highway is fair value, and the civil rights sites are free. What adds up is car hire, parking and the high entry charges at the big family attractions.

West Palm Beach is costly in its winter season, when Palm Beach hotels are among the dearest on the coast and restaurants are priced for a well-off crowd. The beaches, trolley and Lake Trail cost nothing, and summer rates drop sharply, but that means accepting heat and storms.

Atlanta's stage life runs all year and covers more ground. The Atlanta Symphony and the Alliance Theatre share the Woodruff Arts Center, the opera and ballet run full seasons, and the 1920s Fox Theatre hosts Broadway tours. As a home of hip-hop, R&B and gospel, the city also draws major arena tours, with the Tabernacle and the clubs of Little Five Points in between.

West Palm Beach centres on the Kravis Center, with touring musicals, visiting orchestras and Palm Beach Opera, plus serious drama from Palm Beach Dramaworks. The programme is concentrated in late autumn to spring and thins out in summer.

West Palm Beach is the better place to unwind. The oceanfront resort spas on Palm Beach offer pools and long, unhurried days, and the island's manicured quiet and the lagoon promenades suit early walks.

Atlanta's pace is rarely restful, given the sprawl, traffic and humid summers. It does have one unusual asset in the large Korean bathhouses along the northeastern suburbs, with hot and cold pools and lounging halls, some open round the clock, worth the half-hour trip if you enjoy that kind of bathing.