Memphis or Panama City Beach?

The gap here could hardly be wider. Memphis sits on the Mississippi, a working river of barges and strong currents that nobody swims in. In summer, getting into the water means a hotel pool, a splash pad or a drive out to a lake.

Panama City Beach is built around its shore. About 43km of fine white sand runs along clear green shallows when the sea is calm, with quieter stretches at the western end and in St. Andrews State Park, where boats leave for Shell Island. Rip currents are the one serious hazard, so pay attention to the beach flags.

Memphis eats far more distinctively. Its pork barbecue, from dry-rubbed ribs to pulled-shoulder sandwiches with slaw, sits alongside soul food, catfish and Delta-style tamales, with a smaller modern layer in Cooper-Young and Midtown.

Panama City Beach is good for grouper, shrimp baskets or local oysters at a dockside shack. Beyond that, chains and themed restaurants fill most of Front Beach Road, and there is little local cooking to seek out. Neither town has much fine dining.

Memphis has two stories of national importance to tell. Music is told at Graceland, Sun Studio and the Stax Museum. Civil rights is told at the National Civil Rights Museum in the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King Jr was killed in 1968. The historic centre is patchy, so most of your time goes to those museums.

Panama City Beach has almost nothing comparable. The strip is mostly condo towers and attractions from the later twentieth century, and the Man in the Sea Museum on diving history is small. The older streets of St. Andrews across the bay are the nearest thing to a historic quarter.

Memphis gives you a proper night out. Beale Street is a loud party strip where you can carry a drink from bar to bar. The locals' bars of Overton Square and Cooper-Young are easier-going, though neither city has a real club culture.

In Panama City Beach a night out means a frozen drink at a beach bar, a cover band on a deck or a sports bar near Pier Park. Spring break in March makes the strip rowdy and full of students, and out of season the town is quiet by mid-evening.

Memphis offers river and parkland rather than wild country. You can walk or cycle across the Big River Crossing into Arkansas, see the bison and paddle on the lakes of Shelby Farms Park, or walk the old-growth woods of Overton Park.

Panama City Beach has more to do outdoors, most of it on or beside the water. There are tall white dunes and pine flatwoods in St. Andrews State Park, a rare coastal dune lake at Camp Helen, kayaking on St. Andrew Bay, dolphin trips and dives on offshore wrecks. Both places are flat, and both are heavy going in high summer.

Memphis has the stronger day trips for anyone drawn by music or history. Highway 61 runs south into the Delta to the juke joints and blues museum of Clarksdale. Faulkner's Oxford, Elvis's birthplace at Tupelo and the Civil War battlefield at Shiloh are all within reach.

Trips from Panama City Beach are gentler and mostly along the coast. Along 30A are the pastel planned towns of Seaside, WaterColor and Rosemary Beach, to the east is the old oyster port of Apalachicola, and Pensacola's historic district is at the edge of a day's range. Both lists need a car.

Memphis can fill a few days with children. The main draws are the long-established zoo in Overton Park, the planetarium at the Pink Palace, the Children's Museum and the ducks marching through the Peabody lobby. The big music and civil rights museums suit teenagers better, and the heat and driving add strain.

Panama City Beach is the easier family base by some way. The summer sea is shallow and warm, condos come with pools and kitchens, and Front Beach Road has a water park, a marine park with dolphin shows, go-karts and mini-golf. Avoid March, when spring break takes over the strip.

You will want a car in both, but Memphis is a little more manageable. Its downtown is walkable, taking in Beale Street, the riverfront, the Civil Rights Museum and South Main, and heritage trolleys run along Main Street. Graceland, Midtown and Shelby Farms all mean a drive or a ride-hail.

Panama City Beach is a long ribbon of town along one beach road and a highway. It has a slow, sparse trolley-bus and patchy pavements, and nowhere shady to walk. Once you have parked you can stroll along the sand, but summer traffic on Front Beach Road can crawl.

Shopping is a sideline in both, but what you find differs. Memphis is the place for vintage vinyl from independent record shops, music memorabilia, and the small boutiques and local art of Cooper-Young and Broad Avenue. The malls are out in the eastern suburbs.

Panama City Beach offers chain stores at the open-air Pier Park, swimwear from surf shops and souvenir warehouses with shark-mouth entrances. For anything more individual, the boutiques of the 30A towns are a short drive west.

Memphis works out a little cheaper overall. Hotels away from busy downtown weekends are reasonably priced, and a barbecue or soul-food lunch is filling for little. A car, tipping and full-price entry to Graceland add up, though, and prices jump during the spring festivals.

Panama City Beach costs what any American resort costs, and beachfront stays in peak summer are not cheap. You save by cooking in a condo kitchen and by coming out of season, when rates fall sharply and long winter stays become good value.

Live music is where Memphis stands far apart. Beale Street's house bands play blues and soul from the afternoon on, and Midtown adds rock and hip-hop. The Levitt Shell, where Elvis played an early show, puts on free summer concerts, and the Orpheum, the symphony, the opera and the ballet cover the formal arts.

Panama City Beach has cover bands and acoustic sets on bar decks, summer concerts at the shopping centre, and a modest season at the restored theatre across the bay in Panama City. Nobody plans a trip there for the stage.

Neither has a spa tradition, so rest comes from the setting. In Memphis that means an early walk in Overton Park or an evening on the bluffs above the river, and a visit there tends to be about late nights more than rest.

Panama City Beach is the better place to unwind, at least outside summer and spring break. It has resort and day spas and occasional yoga on the sand, and from autumn to spring you can take long sunset walks along an empty shore.