Destin or Louisville?

This is where the two are furthest apart. Destin has fine white quartz sand and clear green Gulf water, from Henderson Beach State Park and Okaloosa Island east to the dune lakes of 30A, and the bay side has the shallow sandbar at Crab Island. Pay attention to the beach flags, because rip currents are real on rough days.

Louisville has nothing comparable. The Ohio is a working river with barges and strong currents, so summer swimming means pools or a drive to the reservoir lakes in the Kentucky countryside.

Louisville eats and drinks with more character. Bourbon is central, poured by the hundred on Whiskey Row and in distillery tasting rooms, and the local dishes, from the hot brown to Benedictine spread and Derby pie, are found nowhere else. NuLu, the Highlands and Butchertown hold the more ambitious kitchens.

Destin is at its best with Gulf seafood: red snapper, grouper and royal red shrimp on a harbour deck, sometimes cooked from your own catch. Away from the water, the coast highway is mostly chains, and long summer waits are part of the deal.

Louisville gives you several solid days of sightseeing. Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum, the Muhammad Ali Center, the Slugger and Frazier museums among the cast-iron fronts of Whiskey Row, and the Victorian mansions of Old Louisville all tell the city's story.

Destin grew from a fishing village and kept almost nothing old. A small fishing museum, the temple mound in Fort Walton Beach and an outdoor collection of military aircraft are about all there is, and for real history you have to drive to Pensacola.

Neither city has much of a club scene, and both are about bars, but Louisville offers more variety and keeps going all year. Bardstown Road has dive bars and patios, NuLu and Butchertown have bourbon and cocktail bars, and some places hold late licences.

Destin's nights are flip-flops and frozen drinks on the harbour boardwalk and at Okaloosa Island beach bars, and the liveliest hours are often the afternoon boat raft-ups at Crab Island. Outside summer and spring break, most evenings finish early.

Destin has a slight edge, and its outdoors is almost all water. Deep-sea charters reach big game fish quickly, and there's paddleboarding on Choctawhatchee Bay, dolphins in the pass, and snorkelling along the jetties. On land you get white dunes and the rare coastal dune lakes, but no hills.

Louisville's outdoors is green and wooded. It has Olmsted's Cherokee and Iroquois parks, the fossil beds at the Falls of the Ohio, woodland trails in Jefferson Memorial Forest and Bernheim, and Mammoth Cave about an hour and a half away.

Louisville has the better range of outings. Bourbon country starts at Bardstown, about 45 minutes south, with distillery tours out towards Frankfort, Lawrenceburg and Loretto. Lexington's horse farms and Keeneland, Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill and Lincoln's birthplace are all easy drives too.

From Destin, the best trip is the planned pastel towns of Seaside, Rosemary Beach and Alys Beach on 30A, about forty minutes east. Pensacola's colonial district, naval aviation museum and brick forts are an hour west, and after that the choices run out quickly.

Destin is the easier family choice, because the beach does most of the work. Soft sand and gentle water suit small children on calm days, condos with pools make long stays simple, and the marine park, water park, go-karts and pirate-ship cruises fill the gaps.

Louisville is a calm city break with children, with a well-regarded zoo, the Kentucky Science Center, roller coasters at Kentucky Kingdom and underground tram tours at the Mega Cavern. It just doesn't have Destin's ready-made days by the sea.

You'll want a car in both, but Louisville is a little easier to manage. Downtown along Main Street, the waterfront and NuLu can be walked, and traffic stays mild, although Churchill Downs, the Highlands and the parks are a drive away.

Destin strings out along a single coastal highway that clogs up in summer and has few safe crossings for walkers. Apart from the harbour boardwalk and the 30A bike trail, you're driving.

Destin has slightly more to offer shoppers, but of a different kind. There's a large outlet centre near Miramar Beach, an open-air mall of chain stores, and the more stylish boutiques and home-décor shops of the 30A towns.

Louisville is smaller and more local. You'll find vintage clothing, records and antiques on Bardstown Road and design shops in NuLu, and the best thing to take home is a bottle of bourbon that is hard to find anywhere else.

Neither is cheap, and the costs come from different places. Destin is expensive in summer, when beachfront condos charge resort-coast rates and charter fishing adds up. From late autumn to early spring it costs far less, but the sea is too cold for swimming then.

Louisville's hotels are moderate for most of the year, and the parks and Old Louisville cost nothing. Derby week in spring is the exception, with room rates several times higher. In both places a hire car adds to every day.

Louisville is well ahead here. The Kentucky Center for the Arts is home to the orchestra, opera and ballet, Actors Theatre of Louisville has a long record of staging new American plays, and Bardstown Road bars have regular bluegrass and Americana.

In Destin, the regional symphony plays across the bay in Niceville, and there are small theatre companies and summer lawn concerts in the 30A towns. Most live music is cover bands on bar decks.

Destin is the more restful of the two, at least outside summer. The big resorts around Sandestin and Miramar Beach have proper spas, and early walks on empty sand in spring or autumn are calming in a way a city can't match.

Louisville has hotel spas and porch afternoons in the Highlands. For a real spa break, you would drive about an hour and a half to the old mineral-spring resorts of French Lick and West Baden Springs in Indiana.