Gulf Shores or New Orleans?

Gulf Shores is built on its beach: a long, unbroken run of squeaky white sand from Fort Morgan to the Florida line, with quieter dunes in Gulf State Park and water that turns clear and green on calm summer days. Rip currents and busy summer weekends are the only real caveats.

New Orleans has no beach at all. Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi are not for swimming, and the nearest sand on the Mississippi coast is more than an hour away, with shallow, murky water. For a beach vacation there is really no contest.

Both share Gulf shrimp, oysters and gumbo, but New Orleans is where that cooking reaches its full depth. Creole and Cajun traditions, century-old French Quarter dining rooms, Monday red beans, spring crawfish boils, beignets near Jackson Square and a serious cocktail heritage make eating a reason to go.

Gulf Shores serves the same seafood in a plainer way, fried or grilled at open-air shacks and big beach restaurants, with Royal Red shrimp as its local treat. Many visitors simply buy shrimp at a seafood market and cook it in the condo.

Gulf Shores has one real sight, the brick star fort at Fort Morgan with its Civil War history, and a small local museum. Beyond that you have to drive away from the coast to find any.

New Orleans offers an entire colonial townscape in the French Quarter, from Jackson Square, the cathedral and the Cabildo to hidden courtyards, plus the Garden District mansions, the above-ground tombs and the National WWII Museum. Its strength is street life and layered heritage more than great art collections.

Nights in Gulf Shores mean sandy beach-bar decks, frozen drinks and the famous roadhouse on the Florida line, with most of the town in bed early and spring break bringing a brief younger crowd.

New Orleans is one of America's great nights out. With no closing time and drinks allowed on the street, evenings drift from Bourbon Street's neon balconies to Frenchmen Street and the corner bars of the Bywater. It is bar culture rather than clubbing, and Bourbon Street calls for an eye on your pockets.

Both sit in flat, watery country without a single hill, but Gulf Shores puts more of it within easy reach. Gulf State Park's paved trails through maritime forest, the dunes of Bon Secour, spring and autumn bird migration, dolphin cruises and deep-sea fishing from Orange Beach make the outdoors part of everyday life.

New Orleans counters with cypress swamps and alligator-spotting bayou tours, the Barataria boardwalks and the live oaks of City Park, but these are outings from a city rather than the setting of the stay.

Each has a comparable handful of outings, but they pull in opposite directions. From Gulf Shores you head for history: Mobile's ironwork balconies and the USS Alabama, bayside Fairhope, Pensacola's naval aviation museum or the ferry to Dauphin Island.

From New Orleans the classic trip is the River Road plantations, with the Whitney the most moving, then Baton Rouge or the Cajun dance-hall towns to the west. Its easy coastal day trips, to Bay St. Louis and Ocean Springs, are the kind of beach outing Gulf Shores already has on its doorstep.

Gulf Shores is designed around families, with condos that have pools and kitchens, soft sand, a water park, a small hands-on zoo and the Ferris wheel at the Orange Beach waterfront. The catch is rip currents in the surf and needing a car for everything.

New Orleans has stronger single attractions, the Audubon Zoo and the Aquarium of the Americas among them, plus streetcar rides and Mardi Gras parades on St. Charles Avenue. Yet the party streets and some neighbourhoods after dark make it harder work with young children.

Gulf Shores is strung out along one beach road and the highways inland, so a car is essential. Walking works only within a single stretch of beach, and bikes are mostly for the state park trails.

In New Orleans you can manage without a car. The French Quarter, the Marigny and the Warehouse District are close together and walkable, and the historic St. Charles streetcar runs through the Garden District. It is slow, and ride-hailing fills the gaps.

Gulf Shores sells beachwear, souvenirs and fishing tackle, and its main shopping draw is the outlet mall in Foley for a rainy day.

New Orleans gives you places worth browsing: antique dealers and galleries on Royal Street, miles of independent and vintage shops on Magazine Street, and Carnival masks, hot sauces and pralines at the French Market. Neither suits a designer-label trip.

Overall the two cost about the same, though money goes on different things. In Gulf Shores, peak summer condo rates and car hire drive up the bill, while winter rentals and cooking for yourself bring it down sharply.

In New Orleans, hotel rooms near the Quarter and festival weekends are the big expense. Cheap po'boys, free street music and the streetcar keep the daily spending modest, and the hot summer is when rooms are easiest to afford.

Gulf Shores offers cover bands and songwriters on beach-bar stages, a November songwriters' festival at the state-line roadhouse and touring country and rock acts at the Orange Beach amphitheatre. For anything formal you would drive to Mobile.

New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz, with brass bands, zydeco and blues every night on Frenchmen Street and in Tremé, Sunday second-line parades and Jazz Fest in spring. Opera and orchestral music are limited, but the city lives for music.

Neither has a spa or bathing tradition, so rest comes down to hotel or resort spas in both. The difference is in how you slow down: in Gulf Shores it means quiet, early nights and sunsets from a condo balcony, while in New Orleans it is courtyard mornings and lazy afternoons in City Park, never far from the noise of the Quarter.