Gulf Shores or West Palm Beach?

Both have soft sand and warm summer water, but the beaches are laid out differently. In Gulf Shores the beach is the town: one unbroken strand of white quartz sand from Fort Morgan to the Florida line, a short walk from almost every condo, with dunes at Gulf State Park if you want somewhere quieter.

Downtown West Palm Beach faces the lagoon, so you cross a bridge to reach Midtown Beach, Singer Island or Juno. In return, the Gulf Stream keeps the Atlantic swimmable long after the Gulf has cooled, and Peanut Island has a sheltered lagoon for snorkelling. Each coast has its rough days, with rip currents off Alabama and hurricane surf and summer seaweed in Florida.

Neither is a food destination, but West Palm Beach has more range. Clematis Street and Rosemary Square have waterfront terraces and steak and seafood rooms, and Palm Beach adds formal dining. Away from the centre, Cuban and Haitian bakeries bring flavours you won't find in Alabama.

Gulf Shores sticks to Gulf seafood served casually: Royal Red shrimp, oysters and Louisiana-style gumbo at open-air shacks. It is honest, satisfying food, and buying shrimp at a seafood market to cook in the condo is part of the fun, but there is little beyond it.

This is the biggest gap between the two. Gulf Shores has Fort Morgan, the brick star fort from the Battle of Mobile Bay at the tip of the peninsula, and very little else. A morning covers it.

West Palm Beach has a serious art museum in the Norton, with American, European and Chinese collections. It also has Flagler's marble Whitehall and the Mediterranean Revival villas and vias of Palm Beach. That is not a week of sightseeing, but it is two or three full days, against a single morning in Gulf Shores.

Both are modest after dark, and the difference is in style. Gulf Shores means beach-bar decks with sand underfoot, frozen drinks and live bands. The state-line roadhouse at Perdido Key is the loudest and stays open latest, while most of the town goes to bed early.

West Palm Beach keeps its evenings to a few blocks of Clematis Street and Rosemary Square, with cocktail bars, rooftops and a couple of dance floors at weekends. You can walk between them instead of driving.

Both are flat, watery coasts, but West Palm Beach has the edge, mostly underwater. The shore dive under the Blue Heron Bridge and the Gulf Stream reefs a short boat ride out have no equivalent in Alabama. Grassy Waters and Loxahatchee also put alligators and Everglades country within easy reach.

Gulf Shores offers the paved trails of Gulf State Park, bird migration in spring and autumn at the western end, deep-sea fishing from Orange Beach and kayaking in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. In both places the summer heat pushes activity into the early morning.

There is about as much within reach of each, but the outings are different in kind. From Gulf Shores you visit older Gulf Coast towns: Mobile with its ironwork balconies and the USS Alabama, the pier at Fairhope, Pensacola's naval aviation museum and the ferry to Dauphin Island. All of them need a car.

West Palm Beach has a big city close by in Miami, about an hour south by fast train, which is a real change of scene. Otherwise its outings are more coastal towns, from Delray Beach and the Morikami gardens to Jupiter's lighthouse.

Gulf Shores is built for families in a way West Palm Beach is not. Condos with kitchens and pools are the normal place to stay, and the beach is right outside. Water parks, a small zoo, the Ferris wheel at Orange Beach and the theme park in Foley fill the hot or rainy afternoons.

West Palm Beach has excellent single outings: Lion Country Safari, the winter manatees at Manatee Lagoon and Peanut Island's calm water. They are spread out, though, and the stay costs more. Both need a car, and neither has a big theme-park resort.

Gulf Shores is the harder of the two without a car. There is no centre to base yourself in. The resort runs along the coast for miles, everything else sits out on inland highways, and there are hardly any buses. Unless you plan to stay on one stretch of sand all week, you will be driving, and on summer weekends that means queues on the bridges.

West Palm Beach lets you leave the car parked for more of your stay. You can do the flat downtown on foot or by free trolley, and Palm Beach is a short bike ride across the lagoon. You can take the train to Miami and Fort Lauderdale too. You still need to drive or use ride-hailing for the beaches and the safari park, but far less often than in Alabama.

West Palm Beach is worth shopping in and Gulf Shores is not. Worth Avenue has luxury fashion and jewellery houses around tiled courtyards, with designer consignment shops nearby. On the mainland, Antique Row is good for an afternoon of browsing furniture and lighting.

Gulf Shores has beachwear emporiums, surf and fishing shops, and the outlet mall in Foley, where most visitors end up on a wet day.

Gulf Shores is easier on the wallet. Summer weekends are expensive, but outside the summer season condo rates drop sharply, and a kitchen keeps meals cheap.

West Palm Beach is expensive from December to April. Palm Beach hotel rooms are among the costliest on the coast, and restaurants are priced for a well-off crowd. Summer is cheaper but brings heat and storms, and in both places you also have to pay for a car.

West Palm Beach has a real stage culture. The Kravis Center hosts touring Broadway shows, orchestras and Palm Beach Opera, Palm Beach Dramaworks stages serious plays, and the Society of the Four Arts adds concerts. Most of it runs from late autumn to spring.

Gulf Shores has none of this. Its music is bands and singer-songwriters on beach-bar stages, the November songwriters' festival at the state-line roadhouse, and touring country and rock acts at the Orange Beach amphitheatre. For a symphony you drive to Mobile.

In Gulf Shores, rest means slowing right down. Outside summer weekends the town is quiet and goes to bed early, and many visitors come for little more than sunsets from a condo balcony. If you want treatments, there are only a handful of resort and day spas.

West Palm Beach is the better place to be looked after. The large oceanfront resort spas on Palm Beach have pools and treatment rooms, and plenty of day spas and massage studios on the mainland serve the area's comfortable crowd. The manicured calm of the island and the promenades on both sides of the lagoon suit an early walk or an evening stroll, though neither place has any bathing tradition.