Houston or Orange Beach?

Orange Beach is built around one of the Gulf's finest stretches of sand: fine white quartz, low dunes behind it and water that turns clear and green on calm days. The state park beaches and Alabama Point give you room away from the towers. The sea shelves gently and stays warm all summer, but keep an eye on the rip-current flags.

Houston has no beach of its own. Galveston, an hour to the south-east, has the seawall and the long West End sands in the same warm, shallow Gulf, but the water is cloudy with river sediment and seaweed can pile up. It makes a day out, not a reason to choose the city.

Houston is by far the better place to eat, and its strength is range. Tex-Mex is a local cuisine in its own right, there is brisket and smoked sausage, and Vietnamese and Cajun cooking meet in the crawfish boils. Out along the south-western highways there are whole neighbourhoods of Vietnamese, Nigerian, Pakistani and Salvadoran cooking, and Montrose and the Heights have chef-led restaurants.

Orange Beach has the same Gulf seafood, including Royal Reds, oysters and snapper, and serves it well in waterside fish houses on the back bays. Beyond a few good dinners, though, the main road serves the same fried platters again and again, and there is little fine dining.

The gap here is wide. Houston has a real museum city to explore: the Museum of Fine Arts and the natural science museum in the Museum District, the Menil's surrealist and ancient art, the Rothko Chapel, and mission control and a Saturn V at Space Center Houston. There are few old buildings, but the institutions are serious.

Orange Beach grew from a fishing village into a line of condo towers, and its only museum is a small one on Native American and fishing history. For forts and old streets you have to drive to Pensacola or Mobile.

Houston has more nights out and more variety, though they are spread across several districts. Montrose has the long-established gay bars and easy neighbourhood drinking, Midtown and Washington Avenue are strips of crowded lounges where you can walk from bar to bar, and EaDo fills up near the ballpark and the football stadium. Open-sided icehouses suit the warm evenings, and getting from one district to the next takes a ride.

In Orange Beach, a night out means beach bars, marina decks and a famous ramshackle roadhouse on the state line. It gets loud at spring break and in summer and goes quiet for the rest of the year. There are no clubs, and every stop is a drive from the last.

Orange Beach has its outdoors at the door, on the water and on two wheels, while Houston's are mostly parks inside a large city. In Houston, the everyday options are the trails along Buffalo Bayou and the woodland paths of Memorial Park. Alligators at Brazos Bend and forest hiking are an hour or so away, and the highlight is the spring bird migration on the coast near Galveston.

From Orange Beach, a paved backcountry trail runs through pine woods and wetland into Gulf State Park, and the back bays suit kayaks and paddleboards. Dolphin boats and fishing charters leave from Perdido Pass, and the Bon Secour refuge adds quiet birding walks.

Orange Beach has the better day trips, mainly thanks to Pensacola, forty-five minutes east, with its colonial quarter, the naval aviation museum and brick forts. Mobile adds antebellum streets and the battleship park, and Fort Morgan and the ferry to Dauphin Island are closer still.

From Houston, Galveston's Strand and Victorian East End make a good day out, and the San Jacinto battlefield and the farm towns around Brenham, lined with wildflowers in spring, are worth the drive. Austin and San Antonio are too far for a day there and back.

Both work with children, in different ways. Houston has the bigger attractions: real spacecraft at Space Center Houston, and in Hermann Park the zoo, the miniature train and the dinosaur hall next door. The price is long drives between them.

Orange Beach is better for an easy family week, because the whole town is arranged around one. There are condos with kitchens and pools, gentle water for small children, and dolphin boats, mini golf and a Ferris wheel by the marina. Rip currents mean watching children closely in the sea.

Both are car places, and neither is easy without one. The difference is scale. Houston spreads across freeways, with districts many kilometres apart, one useful light-rail line through the Museum District and heavy rush-hour traffic. Orange Beach is a single coastal highway a few miles long that clogs in summer, though a bike on the paved trails covers short trips.

Houston is the place for a shopping trip. Uptown's huge mall has the luxury houses under one roof, River Oaks has open-air boutiques, and the Heights and Rice Village add vintage and independent shops. Boots and Western hats are the local buy.

Orange Beach sells beachwear, souvenirs and fishing gear along the main road, and visitors drive twenty minutes inland to the Foley outlet mall for brands.

Neither is cheap, but Houston is a little easier on the budget. Hotels are plentiful outside convention weeks, taquerias and Asiatown noodle shops cost little and several major museums are free, though car hire and parking add up.

Orange Beach charges resort rates for beachfront condos in summer and on long weekends. It becomes good value from late autumn to early spring, or for a group that shares a big rental and cooks.

Houston has a full Theater District downtown. The Houston Grand Opera and Houston Ballet perform at the Wortham Center, the symphony plays at Jones Hall, and the Alley Theatre and touring musicals run from autumn to late spring. In summer there are free shows at the Miller Outdoor Theatre, and zydeco, blues and hip-hop play in smaller rooms all year.

Orange Beach has touring country and rock acts at the marina amphitheatre, cover bands in the beach bars and a November songwriters' festival on the state line. There is no theatre or classical music.

Houston runs at the pace of its freeways and Orange Beach at the pace of a beach town, which makes Orange Beach the easier place to unwind. In Houston, calm comes in pockets: an hour in the Rothko Chapel, the Menil lawns or an early walk in Hermann Park, with Korean-style bathhouses out in the suburbs.

Orange Beach gives you empty mornings, sunsets over the back bays and nothing to hurry to, at its calmest from autumn to spring and away from spring break. In both places, spas are limited to hotels and day spas.