Chattanooga or St. Augustine?

St. Augustine wins this easily. Anastasia Island has a long stretch of wide, pale sand running from the state park dunes down to Crescent Beach, and from late spring to autumn the Atlantic is warm with easy surf. The water is greenish rather than clear, and winter is for walking on the beach rather than swimming, but you can mix beach days with the old town without much effort.

Chattanooga is a river city far from the sea. Swimming means small roped-off areas on Chickamauga Lake or a cool creek pool on the plateau, and a hotel pool is the realistic option if swimming matters to you.

The two are broadly level, and in both places you will eat well for a few days without much variety. Chattanooga serves Southern comfort food, such as meat-and-three plates, biscuits, brisket and catfish, with craft breweries on the Southside to go with it.

St. Augustine eats from the water: shrimp, oysters and fried fish at casual places on the marsh creeks. It also has its own Minorcan touch, the fiery datil pepper used in chowder and pilau.

Chattanooga's story is narrower and more recent. It is built mainly around the 1863 battles at Point Park and Missionary Ridge and the old railway terminal. The Hunter Museum's American art and the Bessie Smith Cultural Center add some variety, but the city has no old quarter to wander through.

St. Augustine has much more history to show. It was founded in 1565, and its townscape has been lived in for more than four centuries. Within it stand the coquina Castillo de San Marcos, the balconied lanes of the Spanish quarter and the Tiffany-glass grandeur of Flagler College and the Lightner Museum from the Gilded Age. Here the whole town is the attraction, not just a list of single sights.

Neither is a place for a late night out, and both wind down early with almost no clubs. In Chattanooga, evenings usually mean a brewery or a cocktail bar on the Southside, with Station Street as the busiest block. St. Augustine's crowd is more visitor-heavy and drinks in old-town courtyards around St. George Street, and there are a few beach bars on the island as well.

This is where Chattanooga pulls well ahead. The Tennessee River cuts through the Cumberland Plateau here, and Lookout, Signal and Raccoon Mountains rise right above the city. You get sandstone bluffs for climbing, wooded gorge walls to paddle beneath, and waterfalls and the Ocoee's whitewater within about an hour.

St. Augustine's outdoors is flat and watery: salt marsh, dunes and lagoons. Kayaking among dolphins and ospreys and long birdwatching walks in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas reserve are lovely, but there is no terrain to climb or ride. Summer storms also push most outings to the early morning.

Both have a reasonable list of day trips, and both need a car. From Chattanooga you head inland to big cities and the hills: Nashville or Atlanta for music and museums, Huntsville for spaceflight, or Lynchburg and Sewanee for something quieter.

St. Augustine's trips mostly follow the coast, to Jacksonville, Amelia Island's Victorian port, or Daytona. Kennedy Space Center and the Orlando parks are long but popular days out.

Both work well with children, and Chattanooga has a slight edge. The Tennessee Aquarium, the Creative Discovery Museum and the Incline Railway, Ruby Falls and Rock City on Lookout Mountain give you more attractions aimed at children, though you will drive between several of them.

St. Augustine relies on the Alligator Farm, cannon firing at the fort and gentle summer surf. Because the centre is compact, a family day there takes less planning, but anyone who wants roller coasters has to go to Orlando.

In both cities you can walk a small core, but once you leave it you need a car. Chattanooga's free electric shuttle and the Walnut Street Bridge connect downtown with the North Shore, but Lookout Mountain and the trails mean driving. In St. Augustine most visitors park once, walk the flat old town and then drive or cycle out to the beaches.

Neither is worth a trip for shopping. Chattanooga's strength is outdoor gear, with boutiques along Frazier Avenue and a large mall at Hamilton Place. St. Augustine has galleries and antique shops on Aviles Street, souvenir rows on St. George Street and bottles of datil hot sauce to take home.

Both cost about what you would expect in American tourist towns, with tipping and a hire car on top, but you spend the money on different things. In Chattanooga the costs pile up at the aquarium and the Lookout Mountain attractions, while the trails, parks and downtown shuttle are free.

In St. Augustine the hardest part is a room near the old town at weekends and in peak season. Coming midweek or staying in a highway motel cuts the bill, and the beaches and old streets cost nothing.

Chattanooga's stages are mostly indoors. Touring shows and a small symphony and opera company play in the gilded 1920s Tivoli, and bluegrass and Americana bands play in Southside bars. St. Augustine's best stage is outdoors, an amphitheatre in the Anastasia Island woods that brings in touring rock, country and folk acts, so an evening there feels more like a summer concert than a night at the theatre.

Neither has a spa culture beyond hotel treatment rooms and a few day spas. Relaxation in either place comes from the slow pace. In Chattanooga that might mean an afternoon on a Bluff View porch above the river. In St. Augustine it means B&B courtyards and an evening stroll along the bayfront seawall, best midweek.