Gulf Shores or St. Petersburg, Florida?

These two are very evenly matched for sand and swimming, and both offer fine white quartz beaches and summer water close to 30°C. The difference is in shape. Gulf Shores is one long, continuous strand from Fort Morgan to the Florida line, lined with condo towers in places and backed by dunes in Gulf State Park, and you are usually staying right on it.

St. Petersburg's beaches lie on a chain of barrier islands west of the city, so they offer more variety: calm, shallow water at St. Pete Beach and Pass-a-Grille, wilder shores at Fort De Soto and ferry-only Caladesi Island. If you stay downtown, though, reaching them means a drive or bus ride. Rip currents are the hazard to watch in Alabama, while the occasional bout of red tide is the risk in Florida.

Both coasts eat Gulf seafood in casual waterfront shacks, but St. Petersburg gives you more choice. Gulf Shores runs on fried shrimp, Royal Reds, oysters and Louisiana-leaning gumbo, served in big beach-bar restaurants and chains, and many visitors simply cook market shrimp in their condo.

St. Petersburg adds grouper sandwiches and stone crab to the shack menu, then backs it with chef-led kitchens and brunch spots along Central Avenue, a strong spread of craft breweries, and Tampa's Cuban cooking across the bay. Neither is a food destination, but you will eat with more variety in Florida.

This is where the two differ most. Gulf Shores is a resort with almost no history of its own. Fort Morgan, the brick star fort from the Battle of Mobile Bay, is worth a morning, and after that you need to drive to Mobile or Pensacola.

St. Petersburg has a real cluster of museums on its downtown waterfront, led by the Dalí Museum's glass-bubble building and backed by the Museum of Fine Arts, the Chihuly glass and the Arts and Crafts collection. Add the 1920s Mediterranean Revival architecture and the murals of the Central Arts District, and you have two or three days of sightseeing.

A night out in Gulf Shores happens on a sandy open-air deck with a frozen drink in hand. The legendary state-line roadhouse at Perdido Key and a few bars on the beach strip keep going late, but most of the resort is asleep early.

St. Petersburg gives you more choice of evening. Cocktail bars, rooftop terraces and brewery taprooms on Central Avenue are close enough to walk between, and the beach tiki bars start the night at sunset. Clubbing is thin in both, but from St. Petersburg the bigger nights of Ybor City are only a short trip across the bay.

Both landscapes are flat and watery, and St. Petersburg has a slight edge for getting out into them. Gulf Shores offers dune and pine flatwood trails in Bon Secour refuge, Gulf State Park's paved cycling network, spring and autumn bird migration, and the vast Mobile-Tensaw Delta swamp inland.

St. Petersburg is about mangroves: paddling trails at Weedon Island and Shell Key with dolphins, rays and winter manatees, plus the long Pinellas Trail for cycling. Its milder winter also gives a longer comfortable season outdoors.

There is little to choose between them for outings, and both need a car. From Gulf Shores, you can reach Mobile's ironwork balconies and the USS Alabama, bayside Fairhope, Pensacola's naval aviation museum and the car ferry to Dauphin Island.

St. Petersburg's options carry slightly bigger names: Ybor City and the Tampa riverwalk, the Ringling mansion in Sarasota, the Greek sponge docks of Tarpon Springs, and Orlando's theme parks at the far edge of a day.

Both work well with children, so the choice comes down to style. Gulf Shores is built entirely around families: condos with pools, soft sand, a water park, a small zoo and the Ferris wheel in Orange Beach, all in an unhurried resort with an early bedtime.

St. Petersburg has calmer, shallower water on its beaches and bigger attractions further away: the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, Busch Gardens and the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, and Orlando within reach. Expect more driving to get the headline days.

You need a car in both places, but in Gulf Shores you can manage nothing without one. The resort strings out along a single beach road, with attractions on inland highways, and walking only works within your own stretch of sand.

St. Petersburg at least has a compact, walkable downtown where the pier, museums and Central Avenue sit close together, plus a trolley loop and a rapid bus to St. Pete Beach. Anything beyond that core still means driving.

St. Petersburg is the more interesting place to browse. Its Grand Central District has vintage and record shops, local boutiques and glass galleries, and the downtown Saturday Morning Market runs through the winter.

Gulf Shores is mostly beachwear emporiums, fishing shops and the big outlet mall in Foley, which is useful on a rainy day but rarely the reason to come. Neither has luxury shopping close at hand.

Gulf Shores is the cheaper of the two, mainly because its rentals drop sharply outside June and July, and long winter stays at low rates are common. A condo kitchen also trims the food bill.

St. Petersburg has its highest prices from February to April, exactly when its weather is at its best, and parking at the beaches and museum admissions add to the cost. Summer brings it down, at the price of heat and storms, and staying downtown rather than on the sand helps.

St. Petersburg has a modest but genuine stage. The Florida Orchestra plays at the Mahaffey Theater on the waterfront, alongside a regional theatre company, a church turned concert hall and a courtyard venue for bands, with Tampa's large arts centre for opera and ballet.

Gulf Shores offers beach-bar bands, the long-running November songwriters' festival at the state-line roadhouse and touring country acts at the Orange Beach amphitheatre. Anything formal means a drive to Mobile.

In Gulf Shores, rest mostly means doing very little. There are a handful of resort and day spas, early nights and sunsets from a condo balcony, which is restful enough once the busy summer weekends are over.

St. Petersburg has more to offer if you want to be looked after. There are spas in the large historic beach hotels, yoga studios downtown, Pass-a-Grille's quiet streets and shady waterfront parks to sit in. Its warm, low-humidity winter is the most restful time to visit. Neither city has any tradition of thermal bathing.