Dallas or Panama City Beach?

There is no real contest here. Dallas is more than four hours from the Gulf. Swimming there means the reservoirs, such as Lewisville Lake and Grapevine Lake, which are warm but have brown shores, or else a hotel pool or the Arlington water parks.

Panama City Beach is built along about 43km of fine quartz sand with clear green shallows. St. Andrews State Park and Shell Island have the quieter stretches. The one serious caution is rip currents, so pay attention to the beach flags.

Dallas eats far more widely. It has brisket sold by weight, Tex-Mex, steakhouses and the Oak Cliff taco trucks, plus Vietnamese, Korean and South Asian food in the suburbs, though nearly all of it needs a car.

Panama City Beach does one thing well: casual Gulf seafood such as grouper, shrimp baskets and oysters from the nearby bays, eaten on docks and open decks. Beyond that, chains and themed restaurants along Front Beach Road make up most of the choice.

Dallas has a real sightseeing list. It starts with the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, then the museums of the Arts District, the Art Deco halls of Fair Park and the early twentieth-century houses on Swiss Avenue. That is about two full days.

Panama City Beach has little beyond the small Man in the Sea Museum, which covers diving history, and the older streets of St. Andrews across the bay in Panama City. Anyone after history or museums will have to drive further.

Dallas lets you pick a mood for the night: dive bars and late crowds in Deep Ellum, polished cocktail lounges in Uptown, rooftop patios on Lower Greenville. Everything stops at 2am, and a ride-hail links the districts.

Panama City Beach means beach bars, tiki huts and cover bands, good for a sunset drink after a day in the water. There is no club scene to speak of. Spring break makes the strip loud in March, and out of season the town goes quiet early.

Panama City Beach has the better outdoors, and nearly all of it is on the water. You can go dolphin-watching, kayak on St. Andrew Bay, snorkel in the lagoon, dive on wrecks and artificial reefs, or visit the coastal dune lake at Camp Helen.

Dallas is flat prairie with pleasant green space inside the city: the White Rock Lake loop, the Katy Trail and the Great Trinity Forest. Cedar Ridge Preserve has the nearest proper hiking. In both places the summer heat pushes activity into the early morning.

Dallas has the stronger single outing: Fort Worth, under an hour away by car or commuter train, with the Stockyards and Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum. After that come Grapevine, McKinney's courthouse square and Waco, though the list thins out quickly.

From Panama City Beach the main draw is the planned towns along Scenic Highway 30A, such as Seaside and Rosemary Beach, then the old oyster port of Apalachicola. They are pleasant, but they feel like more of the same coast rather than a change of scene, and every trip needs a car.

Both are good with children, in different ways. Dallas spreads its attractions across the region: Six Flags and a water park in Arlington, two large zoos, the Perot Museum and the State Fair in autumn. Expect plenty of driving and a hard summer heat.

Panama City Beach is a classic family resort: a condo with a pool, shallow warm water, a marine park with dolphin shows and mini-golf along the strip. The days are simpler there, as long as you avoid March and take the beach flags seriously.

Neither city is easy without a car, but Dallas gives a little more help. DART light rail runs from both airports to downtown, Deep Ellum and Fair Park, and the TRE train goes to Fort Worth. The Arts District and Uptown are walkable among themselves, with the free M-Line streetcar running between them.

Panama City Beach is one long ribbon of road with a slow, sparse trolley-bus and patchy pavements, and summer traffic on Front Beach Road crawls. Most of the pleasant walking is along the sand.

Dallas is a serious shopping city and the home of Neiman Marcus. It has NorthPark Center with art on display, Highland Park Village for the European fashion houses, and Western wear that runs from everyday boot shops to custom hatters and bootmakers.

Panama City Beach offers the mainstream chains at Pier Park, surf shops for swimwear and the shark-mouthed souvenir warehouses. For something more individual, the boutiques in the 30A towns to the west are the better bet.

The overall cost comes out much the same, but the savings are in different places. In Dallas, suburban hotels, barbecue, tacos and free or low-cost museums help. Against that, you pay for car hire or ride-hails, and the Uptown hotels and steakhouses are expensive.

In Panama City Beach, a condo kitchen cuts the cost of eating out, and rates drop sharply outside summer and spring break, which makes long winter stays good value. Peak summer weeks on the beachfront are the expensive time.

Dallas has a proper performing arts quarter. The Dallas Symphony plays in I. M. Pei's Meyerson, the Winspear stages opera and touring Broadway shows, and the Dallas Theater Center is based at the Wyly. Deep Ellum adds live blues, rock and hip-hop most nights.

Panama City Beach has cover bands and acoustic sets on restaurant decks, plus a modest season of touring shows at the restored historic theatre across the bay in Panama City.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, and both rely on hotel spas and day spas. The difference lies in what else is on offer. Dallas has one distinctive place, a large Korean-style bathhouse in the north of the city. In Panama City Beach the calm comes from the setting: an empty beach and long sunset walks from autumn to spring.