Orange Beach or St. Augustine?

Orange Beach has the finer shore. Its white quartz sand runs unbroken along the Gulf, the water clears to green on calm days, and the beach starts at the condo door. Alabama Point and the state park give you room away from the towers. Rip currents are the hazard to watch.

St. Augustine's beaches on Anastasia Island are wide and pale, but the Atlantic is usually greenish and churned, and they are a ten to fifteen minute drive from the old town. What they offer instead is variety, from the state park dunes to quieter Crescent Beach and local Vilano. You can also easily mix sand and sightseeing in a single day.

Neither town is a food destination, and both lean on casual seafood by the water. Orange Beach's strength is the catch itself: Royal Red shrimp, oysters, snapper off the local boats and West Indies crab salad, served at fish houses on the back bays.

St. Augustine has more flavour of its own. Its Minorcan settlers brought the fiery datil pepper, which turns up in chowder, pilau and hot sauce, and there are a few chef-driven places and wine bars around the old town and San Marco. Both have tourist strips to avoid, the main road in one and St. George Street in the other.

This is where the two differ most. Orange Beach grew from a fishing settlement into a line of condo towers. Apart from a small museum of Native American and fishing history, its sights lie elsewhere, in Pensacola's forts or Mobile's old streets.

St. Augustine has the oldest European-founded townscape in the country that has been lived in ever since, and it shows. There is the coquina star fort on the bayfront, the balconied Spanish lanes and the old city gate, and then Flagler's Gilded Age hotels, the Cathedral Basilica and the lighthouse. That is enough for two or three full days of sightseeing.

Evenings are low-key in both towns, and neither has clubs. Orange Beach goes out at beach bars and on waterfront decks, and the Flora-Bama roadhouse on the state line is the long-standing draw. The mood swings from loud during spring break and summer to quiet the rest of the year, and you need a car or taxi between stops.

St. Augustine's nightlife is more compact and steadier through the year. Pubs, taverns and courtyard cocktail bars around St. George Street and the bayfront are all within walking distance of each other, though most close early.

Orange Beach gives outdoor lovers more to do, mostly on the water. Charter fishing is a mainstay, dolphin cruises leave from Perdido Pass and the back bays suit kayaks. A long paved trail runs through pine woods and wetland into Gulf State Park, and Bon Secour refuge is good for watching migrating birds.

St. Augustine has similar low country of marsh, dunes and hammock forest. You can paddle in the Anastasia lagoon, kayak through the creeks and watch birds in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas reserve. It is pleasant but offers less, and in both places summer heat pushes outings into the early morning.

Both have a fair list of drives and neither has anything you must see. The outings from Orange Beach are mostly historical: Pensacola's colonial quarter and naval aviation museum, Mobile's antebellum streets and Fort Morgan. That matters, because the town itself has so little history.

St. Augustine works the other way round. The history is at home, and the longer days out go to Kennedy Space Center, the Orlando theme parks or the Daytona speedway, with Jacksonville and Fernandina Beach closer in.

Orange Beach is set up for families. Condo rentals with kitchens and pools, shallow sandy water, dolphin boats, the Ferris wheel at the marina and mini golf cover most days. A water park and a small zoo are within half an hour.

St. Augustine suits children old enough to enjoy history. The Alligator Farm, the cannon firings at the fort and the lighthouse climb are real highlights. But the beach is a drive away, and the big rides are a two-hour drive away in Orlando.

Neither is easy without a car, but St. Augustine depends on one far less. In its flat historic district, the fort, St. George Street, Flagler College and the bayfront are minutes apart on foot, and sightseeing trolleys loop past the sights. The beaches still need a drive or a bike.

Orange Beach is strung out for several miles along a single highway with little useful public transport, so you will drive for almost everything, and summer traffic on that road can crawl. The paved trails make a bicycle a good second option.

St. Augustine gives a browser more to find. Away from the fudge and pirate souvenirs of St. George Street, Aviles Street and the lanes around it have art galleries, antique dealers and small craft shops, and a bottle of datil-pepper sauce makes a genuinely local gift.

Orange Beach sticks to beachwear, fishing gear and souvenirs along the main road and at the marina. For brands, both towns rely on outlet malls, at Foley about twenty minutes inland and by the interstate outside St. Augustine. Shopping is not a reason to choose either town.

Both charge American resort prices with tips on top, and neither is cheap in season. The ways to save differ. At Orange Beach, you can share a large condo and cook your own meals, or come between late autumn and early spring, when rates drop sharply.

In St. Augustine the old-town inns are the expensive part. Staying in a highway motel or on the island, and visiting midweek, makes the difference.

In both towns, live music means an outdoor amphitheatre and bar bands. The stage at Orange Beach's marina hosts big country, rock and pop tours in the warm months, and each November the Frank Brown songwriters' festival fills venues along the state line.

St. Augustine's amphitheatre in the Anastasia Island woods runs through more of the year. The town also has a community theatre and a modest classical series, which Orange Beach lacks entirely.

Neither has a bathing culture, and in both the spas are a handful of hotel and day spas. The calm comes from different places. At Orange Beach it is empty mornings on the sand and sunsets over the back bays, best from autumn to spring. St. Augustine offers verandas and courtyard gardens at old-town B&Bs and an easy evening stroll along the bayfront seawall, at its quietest midweek.