Daytona Beach or New Orleans?

Daytona Beach is built on its beach. About 37km of firm, flat sand runs along the barrier island, with quieter stretches at Ormond Beach and towards Ponce Inlet, and the Atlantic is warm enough to swim in from late spring into autumn. The surf brings rip currents, so it pays to swim near the lifeguards.

New Orleans has nothing like it. Nobody swims in Lake Pontchartrain or the Mississippi, and the nearest sand, around Bay St. Louis on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, is more than an hour's drive away, where the water is shallow and brownish. If swimming matters at all, Daytona is the place.

New Orleans is one of the great eating cities of the country, with a Creole and Cajun kitchen you won't find anywhere else. There is gumbo, étouffée and red beans and rice, old French Quarter dining rooms that have served the same dishes for more than a century, beignets near Jackson Square and crawfish boils in spring. The cocktails are part of the meal too, since the Sazerac was born here.

Daytona's best meals are fried shrimp, grouper sandwiches and smoked fish dip on a deck over the Halifax River or near Ponce Inlet. They are pleasant and simple, but chain restaurants take up most of the main roads. In Daytona you eat between beach days, while in New Orleans the food can be the reason for the trip.

New Orleans has far more to see. The French Quarter is an almost complete colonial town of iron balconies and hidden courtyards around Jackson Square, St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo. The Garden District adds antebellum mansions, and with the above-ground tombs and the National WWII Museum there is enough for several full days.

Daytona's sights are mostly about speed: the Speedway tour and the history of land-speed records set on the sand. Beyond that there is the Cuban art at the Museum of Arts and Sciences and the climb up the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse. That makes a day or two, and after it the town is mostly motels and strip roads.

New Orleans has no legal closing time and lets you carry a drink down the street. Nights move from the neon balconies of Bourbon Street to the music bars of Frenchmen Street and the corner dives of the Bywater. It is a city of bars more than clubs, but few places in the country go out as hard.

Daytona livens up mainly during Bike Week, Biketoberfest and race weeks, when the biker saloons on Main Street spill onto the pavement. The rest of the year means tiki bars at sunset and hotel lounges, with little for anyone who wants cocktails or dancing.

Both cities are flat and watery, but Daytona has more to do outdoors. The undeveloped dunes of Canaveral National Seashore and the Mosquito Lagoon are good for kayaking among dolphins, Merritt Island is excellent birding country and Blue Spring draws manatees in winter. The surf breaks near Ponce Inlet add another option.

From New Orleans you can take swamp tours past alligators or walk the boardwalks of the Barataria Preserve, and in town there are City Park's live oaks and the path along the levee. That fills an afternoon or two rather than a whole nature trip. In both places, the summer heat pushes outdoor plans into the early morning.

Daytona has the stronger list of outings, each about an hour by car. St Augustine's Spanish fort and old streets are to the north, Kennedy Space Center is to the south and Orlando's theme parks are inland. New Smyrna Beach and DeLand are even closer.

From New Orleans, the classic day out follows the River Road to the old plantations, where the Whitney is the most moving. Baton Rouge and the small Gulf towns make other easy days. Cajun country around Lafayette makes for a long day, and after that the choice runs out.

Both work for children, in different ways. Daytona is a beach and boardwalk stay, with wide sand, arcades and ice cream by the pier, condos with pools and Orlando's theme parks an hour away. The drawbacks are the rip currents and the noisy event weeks.

New Orleans is more of a city break for families, with Audubon Zoo, the Aquarium of the Americas, the children's museum in City Park and rides on the streetcars and paddle steamers. The downsides are Bourbon Street at night and some streets after dark. Both cities are very hot in summer.

New Orleans is much easier without a car. The French Quarter, the Marigny and the Warehouse District lie close together on flat ground, and the St. Charles streetcar runs through the Garden District. The streetcars are slow, though, so ride-hailing fills the gaps.

In Daytona a car is close to essential. Hotels and sights are spread along wide roads on both sides of the river, and the buses run too rarely to rely on. Only the beach itself and the area around the boardwalk are pleasant on foot or by bike.

New Orleans gives a shopper far more reason to browse. There are antique dealers and galleries on Royal Street, miles of independent boutiques and vintage shops along Magazine Street, and Mardi Gras masks, pralines and hot sauces at the French Market.

Daytona covers the practical side, with an outlet centre, a mall, beach shops for swimwear and biker gear on Main Street, plus a few galleries on Beach Street. Neither city has much in the way of designer labels.

Neither is a bargain by American standards, but Daytona works out a little cheaper. It has plenty of older oceanfront motels and condos, and seafood meals are moderately priced, though a hire car adds to the bill. New Orleans charges big-city rates for rooms near the French Quarter and adds high hotel taxes, while po'boys, the streetcar and free street music keep daily spending down.

In both cities the big events push room rates up sharply: the Daytona 500 and Bike Week in one, Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest in the other. Your dates matter as much as which city you choose.

Music is one of the main reasons to visit New Orleans. Traditional jazz, brass bands, funk and zydeco play every night on Frenchmen Street and in the old French Quarter jazz hall, second-line parades move through the neighbourhoods on Sundays for much of the year, and Jazz Fest is the big date in spring.

Daytona has a modest calendar: a winter series of visiting orchestras, touring Broadway shows at the Peabody Auditorium and free summer concerts at the oceanfront bandshell. Neither city offers much opera or serious theatre, but only New Orleans has a living music culture of its own.

Neither city has a spa tradition, and both rely on hotel spas and a few day spas. What differs is the kind of calm. Daytona has early walks on the hard sand and slow afternoons by a condo pool, as long as you avoid race weeks and Bike Week. New Orleans has quiet courtyard mornings, streetcar rides under the oaks and lazy hours in City Park, though the French Quarter at night is anything but restful.