Charleston or St. Pete Beach?

Charleston has proper beaches, but they sit apart from the town. Folly, Sullivan's Island and Isle of Palms are each a drive of up to half an hour, and their Atlantic water is greenish and tidal, with rip currents on some days.

St. Pete Beach is built on its sand. One long strip of fine pale quartz faces calm, shallow Gulf water, with Pass-a-Grille's wide sunset beach at one end and the undeveloped shores of Fort De Soto and Shell Key nearby. The water is also warmer for longer.

Charleston is one of the reasons people travel to eat in the American South. Shrimp and grits, she-crab soup, whole-hog barbecue and winter oyster roasts are served everywhere from townhouse dining rooms to Shem Creek seafood shacks. Its weak spot is cheap international food.

St. Pete Beach eats casually by the water: grouper sandwiches, smoked fish spread and stone crab in season, with many chain restaurants along Gulf Boulevard. A sunset dinner on a deck is pleasant, but for ambitious cooking you drive to St. Petersburg.

Here the gap is wide. Charleston's peninsula is a sight in itself, with Rainbow Row, the Battery, walled gardens and the Nathaniel Russell and Aiken-Rhett houses. Fort Sumter and the International African American Museum add serious history, enough for two or three full days.

St. Pete Beach offers the pink Don CeSar hotel, Pass-a-Grille's old cottages and the war batteries at Fort De Soto. That fills a morning at most, and the real museums are across the bay.

Neither is a club town, but Charleston gives you more of a night out. Upper King Street fills at weekends with rooftop bars, cocktail rooms and oyster bars, and the French Quarter has quieter wine bars and old taverns.

St. Pete Beach is built around sunset: tiki decks and beach bars with cover bands, then an early night for most. Anyone wanting more drives half an hour to downtown St. Petersburg.

Both are flat, watery coasts best seen from a kayak, with dolphins a likely sighting in each. Charleston's Lowcountry adds spartina marsh, live oaks hung with Spanish moss and inland trails in the Francis Marion National Forest and ACE Basin, where alligators live.

St. Pete Beach is more about open water and mangroves. It has paddling trails at Fort De Soto, manatees in the bay in cooler months and roseate spoonbills for birdwatchers.

Both have a good spread of outings within reach, but of different kinds. Charleston's are mostly about history: the Ashley River plantations, McLeod Plantation, Savannah's squares two hours away and Gullah culture around Beaufort.

St. Pete Beach looks to cities and attractions. It has the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Tampa's Ybor City, Greek Tarpon Springs, the Ringling estate in Sarasota and, at a stretch, Orlando's theme parks. You need a car for both.

St. Pete Beach is easier with young children. Shallow, calm water and soft sand lie right outside hotels with pools, and dolphin boats, shelling and aquariums fill the other days, with Busch Gardens within an hour.

Charleston has good things for school-age children, such as the aquarium, the aircraft carrier at Patriots Point and the boat to Fort Sumter. But its beaches are a drive away, and house tours bore little ones.

In Charleston you can leave the car parked for much of the stay. The flat historic peninsula is walkable, and a free shuttle and pedicabs cover the gaps, though beaches and plantations need a drive.

St. Pete Beach is a narrow strip with a beach trolley along Gulf Boulevard. Fort De Soto, St. Petersburg and everything else depend on a hire car.

Charleston's King Street makes a proper afternoon's browsing. It runs from antiques and galleries through fashion brands to independent design shops, and the City Market sells Gullah sweetgrass baskets.

St. Pete Beach sells mostly swimwear and souvenirs, with a few boutiques on Corey Avenue. For anything more you go inland.

Both are expensive American resort towns, and neither makes a cheap trip. In Charleston, the cost sits in the inns on the historic peninsula and the well-known restaurants. Staying over the bridge in Mount Pleasant saves money but adds daily driving.

At St. Pete Beach the cost comes from beachfront resorts, which charge most from February to April, plus a hire car that is close to essential. Older motels a block back from the sand and the late-summer season soften the bill.

Charleston has a real stage life, and in late spring it becomes a festival city as Spoleto Festival USA brings opera, dance and jazz. The rest of the year there are plays at the Dock Street Theatre, the symphony at the Gaillard Center and Gullah storytelling.

St. Pete Beach offers cover bands and acoustic sets at beach bars. The orchestra and touring musicals are a drive away in St. Petersburg and Tampa.

Neither has a bathing tradition, and both rely on hotel and resort spas, so the difference lies in how each slows you down. Charleston unwinds in its shaded gardens, church courtyards and evenings at White Point Garden, with resort spas out on Kiawah.

St. Pete Beach does it with morning walks on the sand and long afternoons that end in the sunset everyone stops to watch, most gently at Pass-a-Grille.