Fort Myers or Orange Beach?

Both towns sit on the warm Gulf of Mexico, but the beach is the whole reason Orange Beach exists. One long, unbroken strip of white quartz sand with low dunes behind it runs right past the condo towers, and the water turns clear and green on calm days. In Fort Myers the sand lies on barrier islands half an hour or more away by car. You can choose between the busy strand of Fort Myers Beach, quieter Lovers Key and the shelling beaches of Sanibel.

The hazards differ too. At Orange Beach you need to watch for rip currents and the warning flags, and the sea is cold in winter. Fort Myers has a shallower, gentler Gulf that stays swimmable through its winter season, though algae blooms sometimes spoil the water.

Neither town has a food culture of its own, and in both you will mostly be eating Gulf seafood on a deck by the water. The differences are in the details. Fort Myers has grouper sandwiches, stone crab claws in season and a few independent restaurants and breweries in the River District, with better cooking towards Sanibel and Naples. Orange Beach has deep-water Royal Red shrimp, chargrilled oysters, West Indies salad and Southern breakfasts in the fish houses on the back bays.

Fort Myers has a modest but real half day of sightseeing at the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, with Edison's laboratory and riverside gardens. Add the royal palms of McGregor Boulevard and the early twentieth-century brick streets downtown, and a day covers it.

Orange Beach has almost nothing: a small museum of Native American and fishing history, and otherwise condo towers. If you want forts, museums or old streets from there, you have to drive to Pensacola or Mobile.

Both towns are quiet after dark and rely on beach bars rather than clubs. Fort Myers splits its evenings between the rooftop and cocktail bars downtown, livened by a monthly art walk, and the pier area on Fort Myers Beach, though the older winter crowd heads home early. Orange Beach revolves around the Flora-Bama, the ramshackle roadhouse on the state line, where summer weekends run late. Out of season, most evenings there end with dinner.

Fort Myers is the place for watching wildlife, Orange Beach the place for being active outdoors. Around Fort Myers you can see roseate spoonbills at Ding Darling, walk the boardwalk through old-growth cypress at Corkscrew Swamp, paddle the mangrove tunnels of the Great Calusa Blueway and watch manatees gather in the warm water in winter, which is the season to be out.

Orange Beach gives you more to do than to watch. A paved backcountry trail takes bikes through pine woods past alligator ponds, paddleboarders head into the back bays, and one of the Gulf's busiest charter fishing fleets works the artificial reefs offshore. Its birding peaks during the spring and autumn migrations.

Each town has a fair list of outings by car, though none is essential. From Fort Myers they lean towards polish and art: smart Naples, the island villages of Sanibel and Captiva, and the Ringling museum and Ca' d'Zan in Sarasota. From Orange Beach they lean towards history, with Pensacola's colonial quarter and naval aviation museum, the antebellum streets of Mobile and the old fort guarding Mobile Bay.

Orange Beach works better as a family town. Nearly everything is arranged around children, from condo pools and mini golf to the Ferris wheel by the marina. On non-beach days, a water park, a small zoo and a modest theme park are all within about half an hour. The rip currents do mean keeping a close eye on the water.

Fort Myers has the calmer, shallower sea and the simple pleasure of hunting for shells on Sanibel, plus manatees, a science centre and the Shell Factory for a rainy afternoon. It has no theme park, zoo or aquarium, though, and every outing means a longer drive.

You need a car in both, and the difference is in how the driving goes. Fort Myers sprawls across a wide county, with the beaches, Sanibel and the nature reserves far apart and winter traffic backing up on the bridges. Only the walkable River District and the Fort Myers Beach trolley let you leave the car behind. Orange Beach strings everything along one coastal highway that crawls in summer, but its paved trails and quiet side roads make a bicycle handy for short trips.

Fort Myers offers a little more. It has an outlet mall towards Estero and large open-air centres, and the galleries and shell shops along Sanibel's Periwinkle Way and in the Captiva villages make a pleasant browse. Orange Beach sells mostly beachwear, souvenirs and fishing gear along the main road and around the marina, and the outlet mall in Foley, inland, is its only real draw. Neither is worth travelling to for the shopping.

Both cost what American beach resorts cost, with tips and a rental car on top, but their cheap seasons fall at opposite times of year. Fort Myers is most expensive from January to April, especially on Sanibel, and much cheaper in summer or if you stay away from the beach. Orange Beach is priciest in summer and on long weekends and good value from late autumn to early spring. Families who share a large condo with a kitchen there can bring the cost down further.

In Fort Myers the arts are an indoor winter season, and in Orange Beach they are outdoor concerts in the warmer months. Fort Myers has touring Broadway musicals at the Barbara B. Mann hall, a repertory company in a restored 1908 theatre and a regional symphony, though most of this stops in summer.

Orange Beach has no theatre or classical music. Instead, country, rock and pop tours play the amphitheatre at the marina, cover bands play the beach bars, and every November the Frank Brown International Songwriters' Festival fills the stages around the state line.

Neither town has a bathing or hammam tradition, so a proper treatment means a massage at a resort spa. Beyond that, the two offer different kinds of quiet. In Fort Myers the restful corner is Sanibel and Captiva, where the islands are kept low-rise and the evenings end early. The calm there comes from how the place is built, so a slow day of cycling, a pool and a walk by the shore at dusk works in most seasons, although summer heat keeps you near the water.

At Orange Beach the quiet depends on the calendar rather than the setting. From autumn to spring, the same months when Fort Myers fills with winter visitors, its beaches empty and the town has little to rush to. Summer weekends and spring break bring the noise back, so a restful stay there means timing the trip around the crowds.