Austin or Orange Beach?

Austin is three hours or more from the coast, so its swimming is a different thing altogether: the cold spring water of Barton Springs, the older Deep Eddy pool and boat days on Lake Travis. These make good summer afternoons, but there is no sand and no sea.

Orange Beach is built around a long beach of white quartz sand on the Gulf. The water shelves gently and stays warm all summer, and the state park beaches have more room away from the towers. Rip currents are the one thing to watch.

Austin is the more rewarding place to eat. Central Texas barbecue, breakfast tacos and Tex-Mex give it real local specialities, food trucks and beer gardens add variety, and East Austin and South Congress hold the more ambitious kitchens.

Orange Beach is about Gulf seafood: Royal Red shrimp, oysters and snapper at fish houses on the back bays. A couple of those dinners are a real pleasure, but beyond them the choice soon narrows to the same fried platters along the main road.

Neither is a sightseeing destination, but Austin has far more to see. There is the pink granite State Capitol, and there are the museums around the university campus, from the Blanton to the Harry Ransom Center and its Gutenberg Bible. Two or three days cover it all.

Orange Beach has a small local museum and little else. To see forts and old quarters you have to drive to Pensacola or Mobile for the day.

Austin offers a proper night out. There is the crowded strip of Sixth Street, the bungalow bars of Rainey Street and the dive bars and mezcal bars of the east side, all close to one another. The limits are a thin club scene and bars that stop serving at 2am.

Evenings in Orange Beach centre on beach bars, waterfront decks and the long-standing Flora-Bama roadhouse on the state line. The town is lively on summer weekends and during spring break, quiet the rest of the year, and you need a car or a taxi to get between places.

Both are good for the outdoors, in very different ways. Austin's setting is the limestone Hill Country: the wooded canyon of the Barton Creek Greenbelt with its climbing walls, the view from Mount Bonnell, the bat flight at dusk from the Congress Avenue Bridge, and Enchanted Rock and Pedernales Falls within a couple of hours.

Orange Beach is flat and watery. Its outdoors means kayaking on the back bays, dolphin cruises, charter fishing, a paved trail past alligator ponds and birding at Bon Secour during the migrations. In both places, the summer heat limits activity to the early hours.

Austin has the slightly stronger list. San Antonio, an hour and a half away, has the Alamo and the UNESCO-listed Spanish missions. In the Hill Country there are the wineries and German main street of Fredericksburg, along with Gruene and New Braunfels.

From Orange Beach, the best outings are Pensacola, with its colonial quarter and naval aviation museum, and Mobile, with its antebellum streets and battleship park. Both cities' trips need a car, and Orange Beach's work better as a break from the beach than as a reason to go.

Austin works with children, but someone has to plan the day. A good one might start on the lawns of Zilker Park, include a bracing dip at Barton Springs and finish on the Congress Avenue Bridge watching the bats at dusk. The Bullock museum suits school-age children better than toddlers. For rides and slides you have to drive to San Antonio or New Braunfels, and in high summer the hottest hours are best spent in the water or indoors.

Orange Beach asks much less of parents, because the beach is the day's entertainment: soft sand for digging and warm, shallow water for paddling right outside the door. When the children need a change, the dolphin boats and a short drive to a water park or small zoo are easy outings. The main things to manage are the strong summer sun and keeping a close eye on anyone in the sea.

Plan on hiring a car in either place. Austin at least has a walkable core around downtown, the Capitol and Rainey Street. Buses, a commuter rail line, the lakeside trail and rental bikes and scooters cover short trips, but the Hill Country and the lakes need a car.

Orange Beach is strung along one long coastal highway with little public transport. On foot you only reach the nearest block, and summer traffic crawls. Bikes on the paved trails are the one real alternative.

Austin has a real shopping street in South Congress, with independent boutiques, vintage clothing and cowboy boots, and the east side adds small design shops. Western wear is the purchase worth making.

Orange Beach sells beachwear, souvenirs and fishing gear. For shoppers, its main draw is the outlet mall in Foley, twenty minutes inland.

Neither is cheap, and the costs come from different places. Hotel rooms in Austin are priced like those of any big American city and soar during the festival and motor racing weeks. Tacos, food trucks and free sights such as the Capitol and the Greenbelt keep daily spending modest.

Orange Beach is expensive in summer, but a shared condo with a kitchen helps groups and families. From late autumn to early spring, rates drop sharply. In both places, a hire car adds to the bill.

Live music is Austin's great strength. Clubs on Red River and Sixth Street put on several bands a night, couples two-step in the honky-tonks, and the Austin City Limits television series still records concerts in the city. The Long Center adds a modest season of symphony, opera and ballet.

Orange Beach has touring acts at the marina amphitheatre, cover bands in the beach bars and a songwriters' festival on the state line each November. It has no theatre or classical music.

Austin's strong yoga and fitness culture gives it the edge. It also has day spas across town and a few destination spa resorts on Lake Austin and in the Hill Country, with lake views and quiet grounds. Don't come here for a thermal bath or a hammam.

Orange Beach offers a slower pace rather than treatments: long, empty mornings, sunsets over the back bays and only a few resort spas. The calm is strongest from autumn to spring, away from spring break and busy summer weekends.