Myrtle Beach or New Orleans?

Here the gap could hardly be wider. Myrtle Beach sits on the Grand Strand, about 100km of flat, pale sand with shallow water and small waves. The central blocks are crowded in summer, and the shore is calmer by the dunes around Surfside, Garden City and the state parks to the south.

New Orleans faces a lake and a working river, and nobody swims in either. The nearest sand is on the Mississippi coast around Bay St. Louis, more than an hour's drive away, where the water is shallow and murky. For most visitors, swimming means the hotel pool.

Myrtle Beach feeds crowds rather than food lovers, with seafood buffets, pancake houses and chain restaurants along the strip. The best meals are local shrimp and flounder on the Murrells Inlet waterfront, and a keen eater will get through them in an evening or two.

New Orleans is one of America's great eating cities, with a cooking tradition all its own. There are Creole dining rooms in the French Quarter that have served the same dishes for over a century, po'boy shops in Mid-City and beignets by Jackson Square. Classic cocktails such as the Sazerac were born in its bars. The food is rich and heavy, but there is enough to fill a whole week.

Sightseeing in Myrtle Beach is a short affair, because the town grew up as a seaside resort and has few old streets or buildings to explore. Its two real sights lie just south of town. Brookgreen Gardens sets American figurative sculpture under live oaks on an old rice plantation and also tells the story of the people enslaved there. Next door is Atalaya, a Moorish-style winter house from the 1930s. Together they make a good day away from the sand.

New Orleans could fill several days. In the French Quarter you have Jackson Square and the Cabildo, where Louisiana was handed over to the United States in 1803. Beyond it are the mansions of the Garden District, the above-ground tombs and the National WWII Museum. Even so, the appeal lies more in the streets and the Creole heritage than in a long list of museums.

Myrtle Beach goes out in resort style: beach bars, rooftop decks and dance clubs around the boardwalk and the entertainment complexes in summer, plus the long-standing shag clubs of North Myrtle Beach. Out of season it goes quiet early.

Nights in New Orleans are far better. There is no legal closing time and drinks can be carried along the street, so evenings move on foot from Frenchmen Street to Bywater dive bars and neighbourhood corners all year round. Bourbon Street is the loud, neon extreme. Here it is about going from bar to bar rather than clubbing.

Both sit on flat, low ground with no hills or real hiking, and summer humidity makes outdoor plans hard in both. What differs is the scenery. Myrtle Beach has dunes, maritime forest and salt marsh, with birdwatching at Huntington Beach State Park, kayaking in the cypress swamps of the Waccamaw River and dozens of golf courses.

New Orleans looks to the bayous instead. Swamp boat tours and the boardwalks of the Barataria Preserve are within an hour, and in town there are the old oaks and lagoons of City Park and the river levee for walks.

Both offer a handful of good outings, and both need a car. From Myrtle Beach the standout is Charleston, two hours south, and closer trips go to the old rice port of Georgetown and the quiet beach village of Pawleys Island.

From New Orleans the trips run along the Mississippi to the River Road plantations about an hour away, where the Whitney tells the story of the people enslaved there. There is also Baton Rouge, the small Gulf towns, or the Cajun prairie around Lafayette for a longer day.

Myrtle Beach is built for children: gentle surf, resorts with lazy rivers and kitchen suites, an aquarium, water parks, a wooden roller coaster and themed mini-golf on every stretch of highway. The catch is the heat, the traffic and driving almost everywhere.

New Orleans has enough for a few days, including Audubon Zoo, the riverfront aquarium, the children's museum in City Park, and rides on the streetcars and paddle steamers. Much of its appeal is still aimed at adults, though, and parents need to plan around Bourbon Street and quiet side streets at night.

Myrtle Beach is spread along about 100km of multi-lane highway with few pavements. Beyond the boardwalk blocks almost everything needs a car, and summer traffic on Kings Highway is slow.

New Orleans is far easier without a car. The French Quarter, the Marigny and the Warehouse District are flat and walkable, and the historic green streetcars run out along St. Charles Avenue to the Garden District, if slowly. Ride-hailing covers the airport and longer journeys.

Myrtle Beach is about volume: two big outlet centres, waterfront complexes, The Market Common and enormous beachwear stores. Apart from the sweetgrass baskets sold along the road south, very little feels local.

New Orleans has more character, though not much luxury. Antique dealers and galleries line Royal Street, and Magazine Street runs for miles with independent and vintage shops. Mardi Gras masks and hot sauces from the French Market make souvenirs you would not find anywhere else.

Myrtle Beach is the easier place to stretch a budget. It has a huge supply of motels and rental condos, many with kitchens, and oceanfront rates fall low outside summer. The costs that catch people out are the car and the steep rise in prices in July.

New Orleans costs more mainly because of its rooms. Near the French Quarter they are priced like a big city's, with high hotel taxes on top. Cheap po'boys, the streetcar and free street music help, and staying along the streetcar lines saves money.

Myrtle Beach offers polished variety shows: country and gospel revues, comedy, Christmas productions and dinner shows with pirates or knights, plus touring acts and summer cover bands.

New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz, and its live music is a reason to come in itself. Brass bands, blues, zydeco and traditional jazz play every night on Frenchmen Street and in Tremé, second-line parades move through the neighbourhoods on Sundays, and Jazz Fest fills the calendar each spring. Opera and serious theatre are thin in both cities.

Neither suits a spa vacation, and neither has a bathing tradition. Hotel and resort spas are about all there is. Where they differ is in how you find calm. In Myrtle Beach it means leaving the summer strip for Pawleys Island, or coming in spring or autumn.

In New Orleans it means quiet mornings in a courtyard guesthouse, slow streetcar rides under the oaks of St. Charles Avenue and lazy afternoons in City Park.