New Orleans or St. Augustine?

This is where the two cities differ most clearly. New Orleans has a lake and a working river but nowhere to swim. The nearest sand is on the Mississippi Gulf Coast around Bay St. Louis, more than an hour's drive away, and the water there is shallow and brownish.

St. Augustine has a real beach on its doorstep. Anastasia Island runs from the dunes of the state park down to quieter Crescent Beach, with Vilano Beach to the north, and the gently shelving Atlantic suits most swimmers from late spring to autumn. The water is greenish rather than clear, but an afternoon on the sand fits easily after a morning in the old town.

New Orleans is one of the great American cities for eating, with a cuisine entirely its own. There are Creole dining rooms in the French Quarter that have served the same dishes for more than a century, Cajun cooking from the bayous, po'boy shops in Mid-City and beignets by Jackson Square. Cocktails such as the Sazerac were invented here. The food is rich and heavy, and it rarely strays from its own tradition.

St. Augustine eats simply and well, mostly seafood. Local shrimp and oysters are served by the water, and the fiery Minorcan datil pepper is the town's own flavour. Apart from a few chef-driven places near San Marco, it is small-town eating, and the restaurants on St. George Street rely on passing tourists.

Both are old colonial towns with Spanish roots, and for sightseeing they are closely matched. New Orleans is larger and has more layers: the Creole townhouses of the French Quarter and the Cabildo, the mansions of the Garden District, the above-ground tombs and the large National WWII Museum. Creole, African American and Caribbean heritage runs through all of it.

St. Augustine is older and more concentrated. You can see the coquina-stone Castillo de San Marcos, the narrow Spanish lanes and the Gilded Age splendour of Flagler College and the Lightner Museum in two or three days, though some of the colonial houses are reconstructions.

The nights are the heart of a New Orleans trip. There is no closing time and you can carry drinks in the street, so an evening moves from Frenchmen Street to the corner bars of the Bywater and often lasts until dawn. Bourbon Street supplies the neon and the crowds, and the pickpockets too.

St. Augustine offers a pleasant drink on a courtyard patio off St. George Street or at a beach bar on Anastasia Island, and most places close well before the small hours. It suits a drink after dinner, not a big night out.

Both landscapes are flat and wet, but St. Augustine's is easier to reach. Salt marsh, barrier-island dunes and the Matanzas River are minutes from town. You can paddleboard on the lagoon in Anastasia State Park, kayak among dolphins or take long birding walks in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas reserve, and the beach adds a stretch of open coast.

New Orleans has swamps instead. The Barataria Preserve, within an hour, has alligators, herons and Spanish moss, and City Park in town has old live oaks and lagoons. But the wild country takes a tour or a drive to reach, and in both places the summer heat pushes outdoor plans to spring and autumn.

Neither city has a long list of day trips, and from both you mostly need a car. From New Orleans the outings are about history and Louisiana itself: the River Road plantations, where the Whitney tells the story of the enslaved people who worked there, the capitol at Baton Rouge, and the Cajun dance-hall towns around Lafayette.

St. Augustine's options lean towards Florida's big attractions. Kennedy Space Center and the Orlando theme parks are each about two hours away, and Jacksonville's museums and the Victorian port of Fernandina Beach are closer.

St. Augustine is the easier place to bring children. The Alligator Farm, the cannon demonstrations at the Castillo and the lighthouse climb make history and wildlife hands-on. The island beaches have gentle surf, and the old town is compact and safe.

New Orleans has good family days too: Audubon Zoo, the Aquarium of the Americas, the children's attractions in City Park, and the Mardi Gras parades along St. Charles Avenue. But parents have to plan around Bourbon Street and choose their streets carefully after dark.

New Orleans is the easier city to manage without a car. The French Quarter, the Marigny and the Warehouse District are walkable. The historic streetcars are slow but reach the Garden District, Uptown and City Park, and ride-hailing covers the rest.

St. Augustine's old town is smaller still and very easy on foot, but the easy part stops there. The buses are of little use, and the beaches, the lighthouse and anywhere further out mean driving, cycling or taking a taxi.

New Orleans gives shoppers far more to do. The antique dealers and galleries of Royal Street and the miles of independent boutiques and vintage shops along Magazine Street make a full day of browsing. Mardi Gras masks and costumes are the city's own speciality.

In St. Augustine the shopping is mostly fudge, hot sauce and pirate souvenirs on St. George Street. Aviles Street has a better mix of galleries and antiques, and there is an outlet mall by the interstate for mainstream brands.

Neither city is cheap, and in both the room is the biggest cost, rising steeply on peak weekends. New Orleans combines big-city hotel rates and high taxes with cheap everyday pleasures: po'boys, neighbourhood bars, the streetcar and free music in the street. In St. Augustine you save by staying in a highway motel or coming midweek, and walking the old streets and using the public beaches costs nothing.

Live music is one of the main reasons to choose New Orleans. Jazz, brass bands, blues, Cajun and zydeco play every night of the year on Frenchmen Street and in Tremé. Second-line parades move through the neighbourhoods on Sundays, and Jazz Fest is the big event of the spring. The formal arts are modest, but the music in the streets and clubs is the real attraction.

In St. Augustine the main stage is the open-air amphitheatre in the woods on Anastasia Island, which hosts touring rock, country and folk acts. In the old town, cover bands play on bar patios. For opera or serious theatre you would have to go to Jacksonville.

Neither is a spa destination, and both offer little more than hotel treatment rooms and a few day spas. Where they differ is in the kind of calm. St. Augustine is gentler overall, with B&B verandas and the bayfront seawall in the evening, and it is especially quiet midweek. In New Orleans you have to find rest in a courtyard guesthouse or on a slow streetcar ride, away from the French Quarter at night.