Chattanooga or Orange Beach?

The two could hardly be further apart here. Chattanooga is a river city with no coast. Swimming means the small lake beaches at Chickamauga Lake and Harrison Bay or the cool creek holes on the plateau, which are fine for a hot afternoon but no basis for a beach vacation.

Orange Beach is built around a long strip of white Gulf sand with dunes behind it, warm water all summer and a gently shelving shore that suits waders and children. Watch the flags for rip currents, and use Alabama Point or the state park beaches if you want room away from the towers.

Neither place is a destination for serious eaters, and both lean on Southern cooking, but what's on the plate differs. Chattanooga cooks inland food: meat-and-three, smoked brisket and pork, biscuits and catfish. Its chef-led kitchens and craft breweries around the Southside and Main Street give a little more choice for an evening out.

Orange Beach is all about Gulf seafood, such as Royal Red shrimp, oysters, snapper and West Indies salad, best eaten at a waterside fish house on the back bays. Away from those, the main road serves the same fried platters again and again.

Chattanooga has real history to show. Point Park and Missionary Ridge mark the 1863 battles, the old Terminal Station recalls the railway age, and the Hunter Museum of American Art and the Bessie Smith Cultural Center add art and African American history. The Walnut Street Bridge links it all across the river, and it is enough for two or three full days.

Orange Beach grew from a fishing settlement into a line of condo towers. It has only a small museum of Native American and fishing history, so anyone who wants forts or old streets must leave town for them.

A night out in Chattanooga is a craft beer on a Southside patio, while in Orange Beach it is a frozen drink with sand underfoot. Chattanooga's breweries, cocktail bars and music bars sit around the Southside and Main Street, with Station Street by the old railway terminal as the liveliest block. Students fill them at weekends, and most places are quiet well before the small hours.

Orange Beach does its drinking at the water's edge, and the season sets the mood. The ramshackle Flora-Bama roadhouse on the state line and the decks around Perdido Pass are packed on summer weekends and at spring break, then quieten for the rest of the year. Getting between bars takes a car or a taxi.

Chattanooga has the more dramatic and varied outdoors. Lookout, Signal and Raccoon Mountains rise straight above town, and its sandstone bluffs make it one of the best climbing bases in the eastern states. The Tennessee River Gorge, the Ocoee whitewater and the waterfalls of Cloudland Canyon and Fall Creek Falls add plenty of hiking, biking and paddling.

Orange Beach is flat and watery, with salt marsh, dunes and pine woods along the backcountry trail, kayaking in the bays, dolphin cruises and some of the busiest charter fishing on the Gulf. It is gentler country, at its best for birders during migration and for anglers.

Both towns need a car for day trips and both have a fair list rather than a great one, but the outings are different. From Chattanooga the draws are bigger cities: Nashville and Atlanta, about two hours each way, the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, and quieter Sewanee or Lynchburg.

Orange Beach's outings are shorter and stay on the coast. You can reach Pensacola's colonial quarter and naval aviation museum within the hour, see the antebellum streets of Mobile, take the ferry to Dauphin Island or visit Fort Morgan at the mouth of Mobile Bay.

Both work well with children, but Orange Beach has the edge because the beach keeps them busy for days. Shallow water, rentals with kitchens and pools, dolphin boats and mini golf make an easy routine, as long as someone keeps watch for rip currents.

Chattanooga suits a shorter family break built around sights instead. The Tennessee Aquarium, the Creative Discovery Museum, the Incline Railway and Ruby Falls all stay in the memory, though they involve more driving between them and more tickets.

Chattanooga at least has a walkable core. The riverfront, the aquarium, Bluff View and the Southside sit close together, the Walnut Street Bridge crosses to the North Shore and a free electric shuttle runs through downtown. Beyond that you will want a car.

Orange Beach is strung along one highway of condos and restaurants with almost no useful public transport. You need a car for every dinner and grocery run, summer traffic crawls, and bikes only really help on the paved trails.

Neither is a place to shop. Chattanooga has a little more character, with the boutiques, galleries and outdoor-gear shops of Frazier Avenue and the converted railway warehouses of Warehouse Row, and climbing and hiking kit as its one specialty.

Orange Beach sells beachwear, souvenirs and fishing tackle along the main road. Visitors who want brands drive inland to the outlet mall at Foley.

Both cost what American leisure destinations cost, with sales tax, tipping and a hire car on top, but the money goes on different things. In Chattanooga the free trails, riverfront and downtown shuttle help, while aquarium and Lookout Mountain tickets add up for a family.

Orange Beach is expensive in summer, but the beach is free and a shared rental with a kitchen cuts costs for groups. Off-season rates drop sharply for a quiet winter stay.

Chattanooga's stages are mostly indoors and seated. The gilded 1920s Tivoli Theatre and the Walker Theatre host touring shows and a small symphony and opera company, a long-running community theatre on the North Shore puts on plays and musicals, and Southside bars add bluegrass and Americana.

In Orange Beach the music is outdoors and loud. There is no theatre or classical music, but the marina amphitheatre brings country and rock tours through the warm months, beach bars have cover bands most nights in season, and each November the Frank Brown songwriters' festival fills the stages along the state line.

Rest in Chattanooga means an unhurried afternoon on a Bluff View porch or a slow walk along the riverfront. Spas are limited to hotels and a few day spas, and most visitors come here to climb and hike rather than unwind.

Orange Beach is the slightly better place to slow down. Long empty mornings, sunsets over the back bays and a few resort spas for a massage make for an easy few days, especially from autumn to spring. Summer weekends and spring break are too noisy for real rest.