Dallas or Gulf Shores?

This is Gulf Shores' main strength and Dallas's weakest point. Gulf Shores has a long, unbroken strand of fine white sand from Fort Morgan to the Florida line, with low dunes in Gulf State Park and warm, clear water in summer. The one real caution is the rip currents, so watch the beach flags.

Dallas is hours from any coast. Swimming there means the reservoirs such as Lewisville Lake or Grapevine Lake, with their plain, brownish shores, a hotel pool or the water parks in Arlington. Nobody chooses Dallas for a beach.

Dallas has much more range. You can have smoked brisket sold by weight, Tex-Mex with frozen margaritas, steakhouses and taco trucks in Oak Cliff. The suburbs add Vietnamese and Chinese food in Richardson, a Koreatown in Carrollton and South Asian cooking in Irving, and the chef-led restaurants are in Uptown and Bishop Arts.

Gulf Shores does one thing well: Gulf seafood served casually, from Royal Red shrimp and chargrilled oysters to gumbo with a Louisiana accent, eaten at shacks overlooking the water. Beyond that the choice narrows quickly, and many visitors simply cook fresh shrimp in their condo.

Dallas has far more to see. The Sixth Floor Museum shows the Kennedy assassination from the window where the shots were fired. The Arts District groups the Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher and the Crow Museum within a few blocks, and Fair Park preserves a large set of 1930s Art Deco buildings. Two days covers the main sights.

Gulf Shores has the brick star fort at Fort Morgan, which played its part in the Battle of Mobile Bay, plus a small local museum. Anyone wanting history from there drives to Mobile or Pensacola.

Dallas gives you districts to choose from: Deep Ellum's dive bars and late crowds, polished cocktail lounges along McKinney Avenue in Uptown and rooftop patios on Lower Greenville. You will usually ride-hail between them, and last orders come at 2am.

In Gulf Shores a night out means an open-air deck with sand underfoot and a frozen drink in hand, above all at the old roadhouse on the state line at Perdido Key. There are no clubs, and most of the town goes to bed early.

Gulf Shores has more of the outdoors on its doorstep, all of it low and watery. Gulf State Park has paved trails through maritime forest and marsh, Bon Secour has quiet dune paths, and the Fort Morgan peninsula is a major stopover for migrating birds. Dolphin cruises, deep-sea fishing and kayaking in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta add a day or two on the water.

Dallas's green spaces are urban: the White Rock Lake loop, the Katy Trail and the Great Trinity Forest, with Cedar Ridge Preserve's limestone escarpments as the nearest real hiking.

Both have a decent range of outings by car, but they feel different. From Dallas the best one is Fort Worth, where you can see the longhorn drive at the Stockyards and Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum, and you can get there by train. After that come the courthouse towns, and you need a car.

From Gulf Shores the trips run along the bay: Mobile's ironwork balconies and the USS Alabama, Fairhope's pier, Pensacola's naval aviation museum, or the ferry crossing to Dauphin Island.

Gulf Shores is a little easier with children because the whole resort is designed for them: condos with kitchens and pools, soft sand, a water park, a small zoo and the Ferris wheel in Orange Beach. Keep a close eye on children in the surf.

Dallas has bigger attractions spread further apart. There is Six Flags in Arlington, two large zoos, the Perot Museum and the rainforest walk at the Dallas World Aquarium, but every day involves the car, and summer heat makes outdoor sightseeing hard.

You will want a car in both, but Dallas gives you a few more options. DART light rail runs from both airports to downtown, Deep Ellum and Fair Park, the TRE train reaches Fort Worth, and the free M-Line streetcar links Uptown with the Arts District.

Gulf Shores has almost no public transport. The resort stretches along a single beach road, and the bridges clog on summer weekends. Bikes only really work inside Gulf State Park.

For shopping, Dallas is far ahead. Neiman Marcus began here, NorthPark Center is a large mall with art on display, and Highland Park Village gathers luxury labels in a 1930s Spanish-style setting. Boots and hats from custom Western-wear makers are the local thing to buy.

Gulf Shores sells beachwear, souvenirs and fishing gear, and the outlet mall in Foley is where many visitors spend a rainy afternoon.

Overall, the two cost about the same, but the money goes in different directions. In Dallas, hotels away from the centre and barbecue or taco meals are good value and many museums are free, but car hire or ride-hails, tips and Uptown prices add up.

In Gulf Shores the season decides the cost. Beachfront condos are expensive in June and July and much cheaper in winter, while the beaches and park trails cost nothing and a condo kitchen keeps food bills down.

Dallas has a real arts calendar. The Dallas Symphony plays in I. M. Pei's Meyerson, opera and touring Broadway shows are at the Winspear, and the Dallas Theater Center is based at the Wyly. Deep Ellum, a blues and jazz district since the 1920s, has local and touring bands most nights.

In Gulf Shores, the music is singer-songwriters on beach-bar stages, the long-running November songwriters' festival at the state-line roadhouse and country or rock acts at the Orange Beach amphitheatre in the warmer months.

Neither place has a bathing tradition, and spas in both are fairly standard. The difference is how you relax. In Dallas it means a hotel spa, a morning at White Rock Lake or the Korean-style bathhouse in the north of the city. In Gulf Shores the rest comes from the slow, early-to-bed pace and sunsets from a condo balcony.