New Orleans or Orange Beach?

Orange Beach has the beach and New Orleans does not. Here a long strip of white quartz sand meets green, clear Gulf water that shelves gently, and Alabama Point and the state park give you space away from the condo towers. Do watch the rip-current flags.

From New Orleans the nearest sand is on the Mississippi coast around Bay St. Louis, well over an hour away, where the water is warm but shallow and brownish. Neither the lake nor the river is for swimming, so in the city a swim means the hotel pool.

New Orleans is one of the great places in America to eat, with a Creole and Cajun cuisine entirely its own. There is gumbo and étouffée in French Quarter dining rooms that have served them for over a century, po'boys in Mid-City, beignets by Jackson Square, crawfish in spring, and the cocktail tradition that produced the Sazerac.

Orange Beach eats well within narrow limits. Royal Red shrimp or chargrilled oysters at a back-bay fish house make a fine evening, but beyond Gulf seafood the choice runs to the same fried platters along the main road. Oysters are the one thing both do well, and only New Orleans is worth planning a trip around for its food.

The French Quarter alone outweighs everything at Orange Beach. Jackson Square, St. Louis Cathedral and the Cabildo sit among iron balconies and hidden courtyards. Beyond them are the Garden District mansions, the above-ground tombs and the National WWII Museum, enough to fill several days on foot.

Orange Beach has a small museum of fishing and Native American history and very little else. For history from there you have to drive to Pensacola's old quarter or the forts around Mobile Bay.

Nights in New Orleans have no closing time and spill onto the street, from the neon crush of Bourbon Street to the music bars of Frenchmen Street and the corner dives of the Bywater. It is a city for drifting from bar to bar on foot rather than for clubbing, and late on Bourbon Street you should keep an eye on your pockets.

Orange Beach goes out on waterfront decks and at a famous sand-floored roadhouse on the state line. It is lively on summer weekends and at spring break but quiet for much of the year, and every move between bars needs a car or a taxi.

Both sit in flat, watery Gulf country, but Orange Beach puts it right outside the door. It has a paved backcountry trail through pine woods and wetland, kayaks on the sheltered bays, dolphin boats from Perdido Pass, charter fishing and dives on the artificial reefs, and birding at Bon Secour during the migrations. All of this makes an active stay easy.

New Orleans offers the swamp instead: boat and kayak trips among cypress and alligators, and boardwalks in the Barataria Preserve within an hour. In town there are the oaks and lagoons of City Park. It makes a fine half-day out rather than a week outdoors.

Neither is a strong base for excursions, and from both you will want a car. The outings from New Orleans are about history and Cajun country: the River Road plantations, where the Whitney tells the story of slavery, the capitol tower in Baton Rouge and, at a stretch, the dance halls around Lafayette.

From Orange Beach they are about the coast's past. Pensacola has its colonial quarter and the naval aviation museum, and Mobile its antebellum streets. Fort Morgan and the car ferry to Dauphin Island are closer, and Fairhope's pier makes an easy afternoon.

Orange Beach is built for children. It has condos with kitchens and pools, gently shelving sand and an early-to-bed rhythm, plus dolphin boats, mini golf and the marina Ferris wheel for days off the beach. The catch is the rip currents, which call for close watching.

New Orleans works well for a few days with children, with Audubon Zoo, the riverfront aquarium, City Park's carousel and children's museum, and rides on the streetcars and paddle steamers. Parents do have to steer clear of Bourbon Street and certain areas after dark, a worry the beach town largely spares them.

New Orleans can be done without a car. The French Quarter, the Marigny and the Warehouse District are easy to walk, the slow green streetcars run up St. Charles Avenue to Uptown, and ride-hailing covers the airport and the swamps.

Orange Beach is a single highway with condos strung out over several miles and almost no public transport, so a car is simply part of the trip, and in summer the traffic crawls. A bicycle on the paved trails is the one pleasant alternative.

New Orleans offers real browsing: antique dealers and galleries on Royal Street, miles of independent and vintage shops along Magazine Street, and Mardi Gras masks and pralines at the French Market. Orange Beach sells swimwear, souvenirs and fishing gear, and for anything more people drive to the outlet mall in Foley, which is good for brands but has nothing local.

Both cost what American places of their kind cost, but they get cheaper at opposite times of year. In New Orleans the rooms near the Quarter are the big expense and jump at Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. Po'boys, the streetcar and free street music keep daily spending down, and the hot summer is the cheapest season.

At Orange Beach summer is the expensive season, and rates drop sharply from late autumn to early spring. Sharing a condo with a kitchen works well for groups and families, though the hire car adds to the bill.

Here New Orleans stands apart from almost anywhere. Jazz was born here, and on any night there are brass bands, blues, zydeco and traditional jazz on Frenchmen Street, in Tremé and in the old French Quarter jazz hall. On top of that come second-line parades on Sundays and Jazz Fest in spring. Opera and orchestras are thin, but that is not why people come.

Orange Beach has touring country and rock shows at the marina amphitheatre, cover bands in the beach bars and the November songwriters' festival around the state line. It is pleasant if you are already there, but not a reason to go.

Neither has a spa culture, so rest comes from the pace. Orange Beach does this more naturally outside summer and spring break, with empty mornings on the sand and sunsets over the back bays.

New Orleans can be slow too, in a courtyard guesthouse or on the St. Charles streetcar, but the city tends to pull you towards late nights rather than rest.