Naples, Florida or New Orleans?

This is Naples' great advantage. Pale sand follows the Gulf along the whole city, with access paths from the streets of Old Naples. Further north there are the mangrove boardwalk at Clam Pass and the undeveloped dunes of Barefoot Beach. The water is clear and shallow, though summer storms and the occasional algae bloom can spoil a day.

New Orleans has no beach of its own. Nobody swims in Lake Pontchartrain or the Mississippi, and the nearest sand at Bay St. Louis is well over an hour away, with murky water. In practice, swimming there means the hotel pool.

Naples eats well but predictably. Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South are lined with white-tablecloth rooms serving steak, Italian and modern American dishes, and the best local food is Gulf seafood: grouper sandwiches, stone crab claws in the cooler months and oysters at the dockside fish houses around Tin City. Street food and markets are scarce.

New Orleans is a reason to travel in itself, because its cooking belongs to the city. Creole dishes such as gumbo and étouffée sit beside Cajun food from the bayous, some French Quarter dining rooms have served the same menus for over a century, and beignets with chicory coffee near Jackson Square are a ritual of their own. The food is rich and heavy, and there is little range beyond the local tradition apart from the Vietnamese kitchens in the eastern suburbs, but it has a depth and identity that Naples cannot match.

Naples is a young resort, and its sights fill a day at most. The Baker Museum has modern and American art, the Revs Institute has a collection of historic racing cars, and Palm Cottage and the old railway depot give a glimpse of the early town.

New Orleans keeps an unusually complete colonial old town for an American city. The French Quarter has Creole townhouses with iron balconies and hidden courtyards, St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo, where Louisiana passed to the United States in 1803. Uptown there are the Garden District mansions, and the city also has its above-ground tombs and the large National WWII Museum. The interest lies mainly in the streets and the layered heritage, not in a long list of galleries.

In Naples the night is a sunset drink, a piano lounge on Fifth Avenue South and bed before midnight, especially in the empty summer months. Anyone wanting more drives to Fort Myers Beach.

New Orleans has no closing time, and you can carry a drink along the street. Nights drift on foot from Bourbon Street's neon balconies to the music bars of Frenchmen Street and the dives of the Bywater. It is a bar city rather than a club city, and pickpockets and the late crowds on Bourbon Street call for some care.

Both cities sit in flat, watery country, but Naples has the richer wilderness on its doorstep. Within an hour you can reach Big Cypress, the western Everglades, the boardwalk at Corkscrew Swamp and the Fakahatchee Strand, and the best outing is kayaking the mangrove channels of the Ten Thousand Islands. The Gulf adds sailing, fishing and paddleboarding.

New Orleans offers bayou boat tours, the trails of the Barataria Preserve and the old live oaks and lagoons of City Park. These make good half-days rather than a reason to come. In both places the outdoors is best in the cooler months.

New Orleans has slightly better excursions. The River Road plantations, especially the Whitney with its history of the people enslaved there, make a serious and moving day. Baton Rouge and the Cajun dance-hall towns around Lafayette are further options.

From Naples the outings are gentler: the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers, cycling and shelling on Sanibel, and the fishing settlement of Everglades City. All of them need a car, and Sarasota and Miami take about two hours each way.

Naples is the easier choice with children. The Gulf is shallow and calm, shelling and dolphin-spotting fill whole days, and the zoo, the children's museum and the mangrove boat trips cover the rest. It lacks a big aquarium or theme park, though.

New Orleans has both a large zoo and an aquarium, the amusement park and storybook garden in City Park, streetcar rides and parade beads at Mardi Gras. Against this, parents have to steer clear of Bourbon Street at night and be careful where they walk after dark.

In Naples you need a car for almost everything outside the small grid of Old Naples. The town spreads along wide roads, the buses are sparse, and the northern beaches and the Everglades are out of reach without wheels.

New Orleans keeps the French Quarter, the Marigny and the Warehouse District within walking distance. The historic St. Charles streetcar runs out to the Garden District, and ride-hailing covers the gaps. You only need a car to leave the city.

The two cities are close here, but the shopping is different in kind. Naples has polished resort shopping: linen and jewellery boutiques and galleries on Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South, an open-air designer mall and outlets half an hour north.

New Orleans has more character and less luxury. Royal Street is known for antique chandeliers and estate jewellery, Magazine Street has miles of vintage and independent shops, and Mardi Gras masks, hot sauces and pralines make souvenirs you will not find in Florida.

Neither city is cheap, but Naples costs noticeably more. In the winter season, beachfront rooms and Old Naples restaurants charge rates aimed at a wealthy crowd, and a hire car comes on top. Going in the stormy summer or staying inland are the main ways to save.

In New Orleans, hotel rooms are the big cost, especially during Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. Daily spending stays moderate, though, thanks to po'boys, neighbourhood bars and streetcar fares, and much of the music on the streets is free.

Naples puts on a respectable winter programme for a small town. The Philharmonic plays in its own hall, and the season brings touring Broadway shows and local theatre, but summer is close to silent.

New Orleans is where jazz was born, and music plays every night of the year: brass bands and zydeco on Frenchmen Street, traditional jazz in the old French Quarter hall, second-line parades on Sundays and Jazz Fest in spring. Its formal concert and opera life is modest, but the street and club music easily outweighs it.

Neither city has a spa tradition, but Naples is made for unwinding. It has large resort spas open to non-guests, golf, quiet streets and long sunset walks along the Gulf.

New Orleans can be slow too, with courtyard mornings and lazy afternoons in City Park. Still, its late nights work against rest, and it has only hotel day spas to offer.