Orange Beach or Wilmington?

Orange Beach has the edge because the beach is the whole town. It is one long, continuous strand of fine white quartz sand on the Gulf, with gently shelving water that warms to around 30°C in late summer. Alabama Point and the state park beaches give you room away from the condo towers.

Wilmington's three beach towns give more variety: polished Wrightsville with its pier, Carolina Beach with its boardwalk, and quieter Kure Beach. But the Atlantic is a little cooler there, and the city itself sits on the river, so every beach day means a drive and a hunt for parking. Rip currents are a real hazard on both coasts.

Both cities cook mainly local seafood, but Wilmington has more range. Alongside shrimp and grits and raw bars, it has eastern Carolina whole-hog barbecue in vinegar sauce, modern Southern cooking in downtown's old brick buildings and a strong craft brewery scene.

Orange Beach has a few things of its own, including deep-water Royal Red shrimp and West Indies salad. These are best eaten at the fish houses on the back bays. Beyond a few good dinners like that, the restaurants along the main road serve the same fried platters.

This is where the two differ most. Wilmington has a large historic district of antebellum and Victorian houses under live oaks, and house museums such as the Bellamy Mansion that show the port's reliance on enslaved labour. Add the Cotton Exchange and the Battleship North Carolina across the river.

Orange Beach has a small museum of Native American and fishing history and little else. For history you drive to the forts and old quarters of Pensacola and Mobile.

Neither is a clubbing destination, but Wilmington gives you a proper night out on foot. At weekends, the bars, rooftop terraces and pubs around Front Street fill up, with university students adding to the crowd.

Orange Beach's evenings are spent at beach bars and on waterfront decks, with the ramshackle Flora-Bama on the state line as the main draw. Outside spring break and summer they wind down early, and you need a car to get from one place to the next.

The two landscapes are close cousins: flat, watery country of marsh, pine and barrier islands, with no hills in either. Orange Beach leans towards cycling and organised trips on the water. It has a paved backcountry trail past alligator ponds, dolphin cruises from Perdido Pass, and a big charter fishing fleet with artificial reefs offshore for anglers and divers.

Wilmington's highlights are wilder. You can kayak out to undeveloped Masonboro Island, surf off Wrightsville, or walk the pine savanna of Carolina Beach State Park, where Venus flytraps grow wild. This corner of the Carolinas is the only place on earth where they do.

Both have a decent handful of drives rather than must-sees, and they differ in kind. From Orange Beach the outings are to cities: Pensacola's old Spanish quarter and naval aviation museum, or Mobile's antebellum streets. Closer in are Fort Morgan and the car ferry to Dauphin Island.

Wilmington's trips go to small towns instead: Southport and the ferry to car-free Bald Head Island, with Fort Fisher's Civil War earthworks on the way, and colonial New Bern and the port of Beaufort about two hours north.

Orange Beach is built for families in a way Wilmington is not. Rentals with pools sit right by gently shelving sand. Dolphin boats, the marina Ferris wheel, mini golf, a water park and a small zoo fill the days off the beach.

Wilmington works well in summer, with the old-fashioned rides on Carolina Beach's boardwalk, and the aquarium at Fort Fisher and the Children's Museum for rainy days. But the beaches and the sights are a drive apart, which makes days with small children harder to manage.

Orange Beach is condos and restaurants strung for miles along a single coastal highway, and summer traffic on it slows to a crawl. On foot you reach little beyond your own block, so the car does nearly everything, although the paved trails are good for bicycles.

Wilmington still needs a car for the beaches, the aquarium and Southport, but it has a real centre to walk. The historic district and the riverwalk are compact and flat, so an evening downtown needs no driving at all.

Orange Beach sells beachwear, souvenirs and fishing gear along the main road and around the marina, and for brands visitors drive about twenty minutes inland to the outlet mall at Foley. There is no street to stroll.

Wilmington gives you more to browse. Front Street and the restored Cotton Exchange have independent boutiques, galleries, bookshops and antique dealers, which make a pleasant hour or two in the old town, even if nobody comes here just to shop.

Costs are much the same. Both are American seaside destinations where summer pushes rates up, a hire car is unavoidable and a tip goes on every restaurant bill.

What differs is how you save. Orange Beach is good value for groups sharing a large condo with a kitchen, and for anyone coming between late autumn and early spring, when rates fall sharply. In Wilmington, city hotels are reasonable out of season, and casual barbecue and seafood are fair value.

Wilmington has more on stage. Thalian Hall, a restored 19th-century opera house, hosts theatre, music and touring shows, and the city also has a community symphony, small theatre companies and long-running jazz and blues festivals.

Orange Beach is all about live bands: touring country and rock acts at the marina amphitheatre, cover bands in the beach bars, and the Frank Brown songwriters' festival every November. There is no theatre or classical music to speak of.

Neither town has a bathing tradition. In both, spas mean day spas and resort spas. What they offer instead is a slow pace, though in different settings.

In Orange Beach that means empty mornings and sunsets over the back bays, at their best from autumn to spring. In Wilmington it means calm evenings on the riverfront and yoga studios downtown. Both lose their calm on summer weekends.