Charleston or Fort Lauderdale?

Both cities have Atlantic barrier-island beaches, but they work very differently. In Charleston, Folly Beach, Sullivan's Island and Isle of Palms are a drive or a ride out of town. The water is greenish and churned by the tides, and swimming runs from late spring to October.

Fort Lauderdale's wide, pale beach runs right along the town on A1A, with lifeguard towers, often clear water and a sea you can swim in through the winter. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea adds a reef close enough to snorkel from the shore, which Charleston has no answer to.

Charleston is the place for food. Its Lowcountry cooking, rooted in Gullah Geechee and West African traditions, is reason enough to come: shrimp and grits, she-crab soup and oysters roasted in winter. The kitchens along King Street and in the French Quarter take it seriously, though the best tables need booking well ahead.

Fort Lauderdale eats well on grouper, mahi and stone crab at dockside shacks on the Intracoastal, and the Jamaican, Haitian and Cuban kitchens inland are worth seeking out. It has no cooking of its own, though, and visitors who care about food tend to head to Miami for a night.

The gap here is wide. In Charleston the whole historic peninsula is the sight, from Rainbow Row and the Battery to the Nathaniel Russell and Aiken-Rhett houses. Add Fort Sumter in the harbour and museums that deal directly with the slave trade, and it fills two or three days.

Fort Lauderdale is a much younger city. It offers the Bonnet House, the pioneer Stranahan House and the NSU Art Museum, which most visitors see in one day before going back to the water.

Neither town is built for clubbing. Charleston's evenings centre on upper King Street: rooftop bars, cocktail rooms and oyster bars, packed with students and weekend groups. There are quieter taverns in the French Quarter, and most places close by about 2am.

Fort Lauderdale gives you more of a night out. The beach bars on A1A fill from late afternoon and Himmarshee Street runs late for a young crowd. Wilton Manors, one of the country's best-known gay neighbourhoods, has a row of bars and drag shows along Wilton Drive, and Miami is close for anything bigger.

Both are flat coastal country where the best of the outdoors is on the water. Charleston's is Lowcountry marsh. You can kayak tidal creeks where dolphins often appear, walk under live oaks in the Francis Marion National Forest and see alligators in the ACE Basin, ideally in spring or autumn before the mosquitoes.

Fort Lauderdale has rather more to do. Its canals and the Intracoastal suit paddling, the reefs and sunk wrecks offshore give proper scuba diving close to shore, and sport fishing is taken seriously. The Everglades, with airboats and sawgrass marsh, are less than an hour west.

The two are about even here, but the outings differ in kind. Charleston's are about history and all need a car: the Ashley River plantations such as Middleton Place and Drayton Hall, McLeod Plantation, Beaufort and the Gullah sea islands, and Savannah about two hours away.

Fort Lauderdale's best day out is a city. Miami is reachable by fast train, Palm Beach's Flagler Museum and Worth Avenue lie to the north, and Key Largo is a long but possible day. Old heritage towns are scarce.

Charleston works well with school-age children. The South Carolina Aquarium, the aircraft carrier at Patriots Point and the boat to Fort Sumter all appeal to them. The drawbacks are that house tours bore younger children and the beaches are a drive away.

Fort Lauderdale is slightly easier, mostly because the warm, gentle, lifeguarded water is right in town. The Museum of Discovery and Science and an airboat ride among Everglades alligators round it out. In both cities, summer afternoons are hard on small children.

Charleston is the easier place to manage without a car, at least in the centre. The historic peninsula is flat and compact, with most of what visitors want within about 3km on foot, and pedicabs and a free shuttle fill the gaps. The beaches and plantations still mean driving.

Fort Lauderdale's walkable triangle of beach, Las Olas and the New River is linked by water taxis and trolleys. Beyond it, the city spreads out along hot, wide roads. Its one advantage is the rail link to Miami and the Palm Beaches.

Charleston's King Street is the more rewarding street to walk, because it changes as you go: antiques dealers and galleries at the lower end, national fashion brands in the middle and independent boutiques and design shops at the top. The City Market is mostly souvenirs, but it is also where Gullah artisans weave and sell sweetgrass baskets, the city's own craft.

Fort Lauderdale's Las Olas is shallower, a palm-shaded run of swimwear, resort fashion and galleries for an unhurried afternoon. Its real pull is the huge outlet mall out west in Sunrise, a draw for bargain hunters that Charleston lacks. Real luxury shopping is missing in both, and from Fort Lauderdale it means a trip to Palm Beach or Miami.

Charleston is at its dearest on spring and autumn weekends, when the inns on the historic peninsula push their rates even higher, and its well-known restaurants charge big-city prices all year. Staying across the bridge in Mount Pleasant cuts the room bill but adds a daily drive, and taxis, parking and paid house and plantation tours add up.

Fort Lauderdale peaks in winter, when visitors from the cold north fill the beachfront hotels, and the hot, stormy summer is when room rates fall well back. Self-catering apartments and older motels a few blocks back from the sand keep costs down in any season. Overall the two cost about the same, and in each the beach and the walking are free.

The two are evenly matched but work to different calendars. Charleston's high point is Spoleto Festival USA and Piccolo Spoleto every late spring, with opera, chamber music and dance across the town. The rest of the year relies on the historic Dock Street Theatre, the symphony at the Gaillard Center, and Gullah storytelling and song.

Fort Lauderdale is steadier through the year, with touring Broadway shows, ballet and concerts at the Broward Center on the New River. It has no resident company of note, though, and classical audiences go to Miami.

Neither has a bathing tradition, and in both, spa time means resort and hotel spas: out on Kiawah near Charleston, along the beachfront and Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale. What differs is the kind of calm. Charleston offers shaded gardens, church courtyards and evenings at White Point Garden, while Fort Lauderdale offers sunrise yoga on the sand and slow winter mornings on the promenade.