New Orleans or Tampa?

This is the widest gap between the two cities. New Orleans sits on a working river and a lake that nobody bathes in. The closest sand is on the Mississippi coast more than an hour away, where the water is warm but shallow and cloudy, so a swim here mostly means the hotel pool.

Tampa's own bay shore is mostly seawall, but within about 35 to 60 minutes you reach soft white sand and a gentle Gulf on the barrier islands, from busy Clearwater Beach to the quiet strands of Caladesi Island. Beach days are easy and very good, and visitors who want the sea outside the window sleep on the islands.

Both cities have cooking shaped by immigrants. New Orleans built a whole cuisine, while Tampa built a strong local accent. In New Orleans you can eat Creole and Cajun food for days without repeating a dish: gumbo, étouffée, turtle soup, Monday red beans, oysters in the cool months and crawfish in spring, in century-old French Quarter dining rooms and po'boy shops alike. The cocktail tradition, from the Sazerac to the Vieux Carré, is part of the meal.

Tampa's distinctive food comes from Ybor City: the Cuban sandwich with Genoa salami, deviled crab croquettes and café con leche in old bakeries. Add grouper sandwiches and stone crab by the bay. Beyond that it is a decent modern American mix of food halls and steakhouses, lighter than New Orleans' rich, heavy plates, but with much less depth.

New Orleans has the more substantial old town. The French Quarter is a near-complete colonial grid of Creole townhouses and Spanish-era buildings around Jackson Square and the Cabildo, where Louisiana passed to the United States. Add the mansions of the Garden District, the above-ground tombs and the National WWII Museum, and there are several full days of looking.

Tampa's heritage is smaller and more specific. It centres on the brick cigar factories and Latin social clubs of Ybor City and on Henry Plant's Moorish-looking railway hotel with its silver minarets. Two or three days cover it, and art lovers cross the bay to St Petersburg.

New Orleans is built for going out. There is no legal closing time, drinks go along the street in plastic cups, and the best nights wander from Frenchmen Street music bars to the dives of the Bywater. Bourbon Street is the loud, neon end, where pickpockets and drunken crowds need watching.

Tampa is more conventional and, oddly, more club-driven. Seventh Avenue in Ybor has the dance floors and a young weekend crowd, SoHo has polished cocktail patios, and the craft beer taprooms are serious. Gasparilla in winter is a huge party, but on an ordinary night it doesn't compare with a New Orleans evening.

Both landscapes are flat and wet, and the interest lies in water and wildlife, but Tampa offers more of it. Paddling mangrove tunnels, watching manatees in winter at Apollo Beach, and swimming or kayaking in the clear turquoise springs around Crystal River and Weeki Wachee give a range of outings New Orleans can't match.

New Orleans has its cypress swamps and bayous, with alligator-spotting boat tours and the Barataria Preserve boardwalks within an hour, and the old oaks and lagoons of City Park in town. Its outdoor season is narrower, because summer heat shuts it down from June to September, while Tampa's winter is the prime time to be outside.

The two are about level, but the outings differ in kind. From New Orleans, the strongest days are about history. The River Road plantations, above all the Whitney with its account of the people enslaved there, lie about an hour upriver, and the Cajun prairie towns and their dance halls are a long day west.

Tampa gives more variety and less depth. You can see the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, the Greek sponge docks of Tarpon Springs, the Ringling estate in Sarasota and the Frank Lloyd Wright campus at Lakeland, all by car, but there are no historic towns of real age.

Tampa is the easier place to bring children. Busch Gardens pairs roller coasters with an animal park and has a water park next door, ZooTampa looks after manatees, and the Florida Aquarium and Riverwalk splash pads fill the gaps. The shallow Gulf beaches suit toddlers, and Orlando's parks are within a long day's reach, though everything involves a drive.

New Orleans does better than its party image suggests, with Audubon Zoo's swamp exhibit, the riverfront aquarium, the carousel and children's museum in City Park, and streetcar and paddle-steamer rides. Still, Bourbon Street at night and some streets after dark mean parents have to plan where they walk.

New Orleans is far easier without a car. The French Quarter, the Marigny and the Warehouse District sit in a flat band by the river that you can cover on foot, and the green St. Charles streetcars carry you to the Garden District. They are slow, and ride-hailing fills the gaps at night and to the airport.

Tampa is built around the car. A heritage streetcar and the Riverwalk link downtown with Ybor City, but the beaches, the theme parks, South Tampa and every day trip mean a drive, often with bridge traffic at rush hour.

New Orleans is the more rewarding place to browse. Royal Street's antique dealers sell chandeliers and estate jewellery, Magazine Street runs for miles of independent boutiques and vintage shops, and Carnival masks and costumes are a speciality you won't find elsewhere.

Tampa's strength lies elsewhere. Its large upscale mall holds the designer and department-store labels that New Orleans largely lacks, and Hyde Park Village adds a small open-air boutique district. Its one true local craft is the hand-rolled cigar in the small shops of Ybor City.

Overall costs are much the same in both cities, but the money goes on different things. In New Orleans the main expense is the room, especially near the Quarter and around Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, while the streetcar, po'boys and free street music keep each day modest.

In Tampa, the extra cost is a car, which is close to essential, plus theme park tickets for families. Beach hotels charge most in the winter and spring high season. In both cities the hot summer months are the cheaper time to go.

New Orleans is one of the few places where live music alone justifies the trip. You can hear traditional jazz, brass bands, zydeco and funk on any night along Frenchmen Street and in the old Quarter jazz hall, and second-line parades fill Sunday streets for much of the year. Jazz Fest and the French Quarter Festival anchor the spring.

Tampa's offer is more formal and mostly touring. The Straz Center hosts Broadway shows, the resident opera, ballet and the Florida Orchestra, and the ornate 1926 Tampa Theatre is worth an evening. It gives a steadier classical programme than New Orleans, but very little music of its own.

Neither city is a place to come for rest, and neither has a bathing tradition. Tampa has the edge in kind: a few substantial resort spas and the slow sunset rhythm of the barrier islands give a quieter base. In New Orleans, the calm comes from a courtyard guesthouse morning and a slow streetcar ride under the St. Charles oaks.