Noosa or Sydney?

Both towns live on the beach, but Sydney has far more coastline to choose from. There is the chain of ocean beaches from Bondi through Bronte to Coogee, Manly and the Northern Beaches beyond, and calm harbour coves such as Balmoral and Nielsen Park for days when the surf is rough. Noosa's offer is smaller but well made: Main Beach is a rare north-facing bay with gentle waves, there are coves along the national park track, and the open beaches at Sunshine and Peregian lie just south.

Noosa's real advantage is the water, which stays a few degrees warmer than Sydney's through the year and makes winter swimming far easier. For range and variety, though, Sydney comes out ahead.

In food, Sydney is the much stronger city. Its range comes from immigration, with Vietnamese food in Cabramatta, Lebanese in Lakemba, Indian in Harris Park and Chinese and Thai in Haymarket. It also has the fish market at Pyrmont and serious chef-led kitchens in Surry Hills and Potts Point.

Noosa eats well for a resort, with Moreton Bay bugs, prawns, produce from the hinterland farms and a long brunch after the morning swim. But the menus along Hastings Street and the Noosaville riverfront cover the same narrow ground, and after a week they start to repeat.

Here the two are far apart. Noosa has no historic quarter or major museum. A small gallery on the river at Tewantin is about all there is, and visitors who want more drive to Brisbane.

Sydney has the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, the colonial sandstone of The Rocks, Hyde Park Barracks on the World Heritage list, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales with its Aboriginal collection. It is not a dense old city, but a few days of real sightseeing is easy to fill.

Noosa's evenings end with dinner and a drink on the surf club deck or in a Hastings Street wine bar, and the town is mostly asleep before midnight. Sydney gives you a proper night out: hidden cocktail bars in the CBD laneways, old pubs in The Rocks, Oxford Street's LGBTQ scene and the later, more alternative inner west around Newtown and Enmore. Neither is a clubbing city, but only Sydney has a night worth planning around.

Both are excellent, and the difference is in kind. Noosa's national park starts at the end of the main street, with koalas above the coastal track, famous right-hand point breaks for longboarders, and the quiet tea-tree channels of the Everglades to explore by kayak north of the river.

Sydney's nature is spread over a much larger area. There are clifftop walks between Bondi and Coogee, the wild coastal trails of the Royal National Park, the drowned valleys of Ku-ring-gai Chase, and the Blue Mountains about two hours west. Humpback whales pass both coasts in winter.

Neither has a long list, and in both places the best outings are mostly about landscape. Sydney has slightly more towns with some history. Katoomba and Leura keep Federation-era streets, Parramatta has some of the country's oldest colonial buildings, the Hunter Valley offers vineyard lunches and Newcastle is an easy train ride away.

From Noosa the choice is the Eumundi craft market, the ridge-top villages of Montville and Maleny, or a long day in Brisbane. In both places a car makes most of these trips far easier.

Both are easy with children, but Sydney has more for them to do. Taronga Zoo is a ferry ride from Circular Quay, and the aquarium, the ships at the Maritime Museum, the Australian Museum's dinosaurs and the old rides at Luna Park are all close to the centre.

Noosa's appeal is its scale: a small, safe town with patrolled Main Beach and river shallows calm enough for toddlers. For organised attractions, though, families have to drive about an hour to Australia Zoo or Mooloolaba.

Sydney has a full network of trains, metro, light rail, buses and ferries, all on one tap-on card, and the harbour ferries are a pleasure in themselves. The eastern beaches still need a bus, and the outer suburbs need a car.

In Noosa you can walk between Hastings Street, Main Beach and the park entrance, and buses and a slow river ferry link the waterfront areas. Beyond the town, the Everglades, the hinterland and the Cooloola coast are hard to reach without hiring a car.

Sydney is the place for real shopping. International flagships line Pitt Street Mall, Australian designers fill the Victorian galleries of the Queen Victoria Building and the Strand Arcade, and David Jones anchors the centre. Paddington adds local fashion and weekend markets.

Noosa is limited to the short boutique strip on Hastings Street, selling resort wear and linen, plus the excellent makers' market at Eumundi. Both are good for Australian swimwear, but serious shoppers in Noosa end up driving to Brisbane.

Both are expensive, and neither is the cheaper choice overall. The ways to save differ. In Sydney, fare caps on public transport, free galleries and the Asian food courts keep a day's spending in check. In Noosa, which has very little cheap food, the savings come from self-catering apartments in Noosaville or Sunshine Beach and from avoiding school vacations, when minimum stays apply. In both places the beaches and coastal walks are free.

Sydney has a real arts scene, and Noosa has very little. Opera Australia and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra perform at the Opera House, Belvoir and Sydney Theatre Company stage Australian drama, Bangarra brings Aboriginal dance, and Newtown's pubs handle live music.

Noosa has a community theatre in Noosa Junction, the short Noosa Alive festival each year and acoustic sets in bars at weekends.

The difference here is between rest as the default and rest as a ritual. In Noosa it takes no effort: nothing in town needs seeing, so a morning slides from a swim into a long breakfast, and a yoga or Pilates class fits in the way it does for locals. The one thing that breaks the calm is the school vacations, when families and traffic fill the centre.

Sydney's version is something you go out and do. Locals swim laps at dawn in the sea-fed rock pools at Bronte and Clovelly all year, and in winter water of around 18°C that swim wakes you up more than it soothes. For warmth, the Korean-style bathhouses offer steam and a hot soak, which Noosa, with no bathing culture of its own, does not have.