Gulf Shores or Tampa?

Both have the same fine white Gulf sand and warm summer water. The difference is where you sleep. At Gulf Shores the beach is right outside the door, one long strand from Fort Morgan to Orange Beach, with low dunes in Gulf State Park and quieter stretches at the western end. Rip currents mean you need to watch the flags.

Tampa itself sits on the bay behind seawalls. Its best sand, at Clearwater, St Pete Beach and Fort De Soto, is up to an hour away across the bridges. The water there is calm and the beaches are lovely, but every beach day is an outing rather than the rhythm of the stay.

Tampa's food has more character. Its Cuban, Spanish and Sicilian roots give it the pressed Cuban sandwich with salami, deviled crab croquettes and the old Ybor bakeries pouring café con leche. Food halls and South Tampa neighbourhood restaurants fill out the rest.

At Gulf Shores you eat Gulf seafood, served simply: Royal Red shrimp, oysters and gumbo at open-air shacks with a view of the water. It is fresh and satisfying, but there is little range beyond it, and many visitors buy shrimp at the market and cook it in their condo.

This is where the two differ most. Gulf Shores has Fort Morgan, the brick star fort that saw action in the Battle of Mobile Bay, and a small local museum. A morning covers both.

Tampa's heritage is compact but real. It has Ybor City's brick cigar factories and immigrant social clubs, the minaret-topped railway hotel that now houses the Plant Museum, and the art and history museums along the river, enough for two or three unhurried days.

Gulf Shores goes out in flip-flops. A night out means an open-air beach-bar deck with frozen drinks and live bands, above all at the old roadhouse on the Florida line. There are no clubs, and most of the resort is asleep early.

Tampa gives you a real choice of evenings. There are dance clubs and a young crowd on Seventh Avenue in Ybor City, cocktail patios in SoHo, and craft-beer taprooms and hotel rooftops downtown. Each winter the Gasparilla pirate festival turns the bayfront into a huge street party.

Gulf Shores is the place for birds, bikes and back bays, while Tampa's outdoors is about clear springs and big wildlife. At Gulf Shores you can cycle the paved trails through the maritime forest and marsh of Gulf State Park, walk the quiet dune and lake paths of Bon Secour, and watch the spring and autumn bird migration at the western end of the peninsula. Inland, you can take a kayak or a boat tour into the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, one of the country's great river swamps.

Around Tampa you can paddle the cypress swamp of Hillsborough River State Park and the mangrove tunnels in the bay, and in winter you can watch manatees gather in the warm water near Apollo Beach. An hour or more north are the clear, turquoise spring-fed rivers at Crystal River and Weeki Wachee. Neither place has a single hill, and in both the summer heat means setting out early in the morning.

Both offer a circle of pleasant outings by car rather than famous names. From Gulf Shores the theme is Gulf Coast history: Mobile's ironwork balconies and the USS Alabama, Pensacola's naval aviation museum, bayside Fairhope and the car ferry to Dauphin Island.

Tampa's outings lean towards art and architecture. There is the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, the Ringling estate in Sarasota and the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings at Lakeland, plus the Greek sponge docks of Tarpon Springs.

Gulf Shores gives families a resort beach week, and Tampa an attractions-led city trip. At Gulf Shores the days revolve around the condo pool and the soft sand. For a change there is the water park, the small hands-on zoo, the Ferris wheel at Orange Beach and the fishing pier in Gulf State Park. The surf needs watching because of rip currents.

In Tampa the attractions set the plan: the roller coasters and African animal park at Busch Gardens, the manatees at ZooTampa, the Florida Aquarium and the Glazer Children's Museum. The calm, shallow beaches across the bay suit small children better than open surf, and Legoland and the Orlando parks are within reach on a long day.

Neither works without a car, but Tampa is a little easier. A heritage streetcar links downtown, the Channel District and Ybor City, and the Riverwalk means a short stay in the centre can be done on foot.

Gulf Shores is strung along a single beach road with almost no public transport. On foot you can only get around your own stretch of sand, and traffic on the bridges builds up on summer weekends.

Tampa has more to browse: a large upscale mall with the luxury brands, the open-air boutiques of Hyde Park Village and cigars still rolled by hand in small Ybor workshops.

Gulf Shores shopping means beachwear, fishing tackle and souvenir emporiums, with the outlet mall in Foley as the usual rainy-day trip.

Overall costs are much the same, both sit in the middle of the US range, and in both a car adds to the bill. The seasons run in opposite directions: Gulf Shores is dearest in June and July and much cheaper in winter, while Tampa's high season is winter and spring and summer is cheaper. Food costs come down with a condo kitchen at Gulf Shores and with the Cuban lunch counters in Tampa.

At Gulf Shores, live entertainment means bands on beach-bar stages, the November songwriters' festival at the state-line roadhouse and touring country and rock acts at the Orange Beach amphitheatre in the warmer months. For anything classical you drive an hour to Mobile.

Tampa has proper stages. The Straz Center puts on touring Broadway musicals, opera, ballet and plays, the Florida Orchestra performs there, and the 1926 Tampa Theatre holds films and concerts under its twinkling ceiling.

Neither has a spa or bathing tradition, and both rely on a handful of resort spas. What differs is where you find the calm. At Gulf Shores it is on your doorstep, in a town that goes to bed early outside summer weekends, while sprawling, humid Tampa leaves you crossing the bay to the barrier islands for it.