New Orleans or Panama City Beach?

The gap here is enormous. New Orleans sits between a lake and a working river, and nobody swims in either. The nearest sand, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, is shallow and brownish, so most visitors make do with the hotel pool.

Panama City Beach is the opposite: about 43km of powder-white sand with clear green water. The western end and St. Andrews State Park are quieter, and boats run out to the undeveloped sands of Shell Island. Rip currents are the one serious caution, so watch the flags.

New Orleans has one of the most distinctive kitchens in America. There are Creole and Cajun dishes from gumbo to étouffée, century-old dining rooms in the French Quarter, po'boy shops in Mid-City, crawfish in spring and oysters in the cooler months, and the Sazerac to go with them. The food is rich, and it rarely strays far from its own tradition.

Panama City Beach does Gulf seafood well enough, with grouper and shrimp baskets on open-air decks. Beyond that, most of the choice along Front Beach Road is chains and themed restaurants. It is fine for a fish sandwich after a swim, but not a reason to go.

The French Quarter alone outweighs anything the Gulf resort can show. It has Creole townhouses, Jackson Square and the Cabildo, where Louisiana passed to the United States. Beyond it are the Garden District mansions, the above-ground tombs and the National WWII Museum.

Panama City Beach is mostly condo towers built after the mid-twentieth century, plus a small diving museum. The older streets of St. Andrews across the bay are the nearest thing to history it has.

New Orleans has no legal closing time and lets you carry drinks in plastic cups, so a night can run from the neon of Bourbon Street to the music bars of Frenchmen Street and the corner bars of the Bywater. It is a city for going from bar to bar on foot rather than for clubbing.

In Panama City Beach the evening means frozen drinks at sunset in tiki huts and cover bands around Pier Park. That is pleasant after a beach day, but outside summer the town is quiet by mid-evening. Spring break in March makes the strip loud in a way that suits students and almost nobody else.

Both are flat and low-lying, but Panama City Beach puts more of the outdoors within easy reach. St. Andrews State Park has tall white dunes and a lagoon for snorkelling, and Camp Helen borders a rare coastal dune lake. On the water there are dolphin trips, paddleboarding, fishing and diving on offshore wrecks.

New Orleans has a swampier kind of landscape. Within an hour are cypress bayous with alligators and Spanish moss, and the Barataria Preserve has boardwalk trails. In town, City Park has ancient live oaks. In both places the summer heat and humidity weigh on anything energetic.

New Orleans has the stronger outings. The main one is the River Road to the plantations about an hour upstream, where the Whitney tells the story of the people enslaved there. Baton Rouge is also within reach, and at a stretch so are the Cajun dance halls around Lafayette.

From Panama City Beach the draw is Scenic Highway 30A, with the pastel planned towns of Seaside and Rosemary Beach, or a drive east to the old oyster port of Apalachicola. These are pleasant trips, but most are variations on the coast itself, and every one needs a car.

Panama City Beach is built around families. The water is shallow and warm in summer, and the sheltered St. Andrews lagoon is good for a first snorkel. There is a big water park, a marine park with dolphin shows and mini-golf all along the strip. The month to avoid is March.

New Orleans does better for children than its reputation suggests, with Audubon Zoo, the riverfront aquarium, the carousel and children's museum in City Park, and rides on the streetcars and paddle steamers. Even so, the summer heat, Bourbon Street at night and the care needed after dark make it harder work with children.

New Orleans keeps its sights in a compact, flat band along the river, so you can walk the Quarter, the Marigny and the Warehouse District. The St. Charles streetcar runs out to the Garden District, and ride-hailing fills the gaps.

Panama City Beach is spread along one long road. The pavements are patchy and the trolley-bus is slow, so a car is close to essential, and summer traffic on Front Beach Road can crawl.

Neither is a destination for designer labels, but New Orleans has far more character. Royal Street has antique dealers and galleries, Magazine Street has miles of independent and vintage shops, and Mardi Gras masks are a local speciality.

Panama City Beach offers chain stores at Pier Park and souvenir warehouses with shark-mouth entrances. For anything more individual, you have to drive to the boutiques of the 30A towns.

Overall costs are broadly similar, but the money goes in different places. In New Orleans the big expense is the hotel room, which is steep in the French Quarter and around Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. Po'boys, the streetcar and the street music cost little or nothing.

In Panama City Beach a condo kitchen cuts the cost of eating, and long winter stays are cheap. On the other hand, you cannot avoid hiring a car, and a peak-summer week on the beachfront adds up.

Jazz was born in New Orleans, and every night of the year brings traditional jazz, brass bands, blues and zydeco on Frenchmen Street and in Tremé. There are second-line parades through the neighbourhoods on Sundays for much of the year, and Jazz Fest in spring.

Panama City Beach has cover bands on restaurant decks and a modest season at the restored historic theatre across the bay, which is nothing to plan a trip around.

Neither has a spa tradition. Both offer little more than hotel and resort spas, so how restful your stay is depends on the setting. In New Orleans the calm comes from a quiet courtyard guesthouse and slow streetcar rides under the oaks of St. Charles Avenue. In Panama City Beach it comes from empty sands and long walks at sunset between autumn and spring, away from the noise of summer and spring break.