Panama City Beach or Pensacola?

These are two of the finest beaches on the Gulf, with the same powder-white quartz sand and clear green water, but they are laid out differently. At Panama City Beach the town sits on the sand itself. You get one continuous shore of about 43km lined with condo towers, with the quieter stretches at the western end, the calm lagoon in St. Andrews State Park, and boats out to the empty sands of Shell Island.

Pensacola's beaches are across the bay on Santa Rosa Island, a short drive over the bridges, and much of the island is protected national seashore with low dunes and no buildings. The sheltered sound side gives toddlers shallow, calm water, and Perdido Key offers a quieter condo stretch. Both coasts have dangerous rip currents, so watch the flags in either place.

Both towns serve Gulf seafood: grouper, shrimp and local oysters eaten at casual tables by the water. In Panama City Beach that is almost all there is, and along Front Beach Road chains and big themed restaurants make up most of the choice.

Pensacola eats noticeably better. It adds royal red shrimp and gumbo with a Creole touch, and downtown around Palafox Street has modern Southern restaurants, brunch places and a Saturday produce market. The range is still narrow, but you can plan dinners rather than just find one.

This is where the two differ most. Panama City Beach is a mid-twentieth-century resort strip. Apart from the small Man in the Sea Museum and the older streets of St. Andrews across the bay, there is almost nothing to visit.

Pensacola has lived under five flags, and it shows. The restored houses around Plaza Ferdinand and the Seville district, the brick Fort Pickens at the tip of the island, Fort Barrancas, the lighthouse and the vast National Naval Aviation Museum will fill two or three good days. Bring ID for the naval air station.

Evenings in Panama City Beach mean deck bars on the sand, frozen drinks at sunset and the sports bars around Pier Park. March is the exception, when spring break makes the strip loud and rowdy, and the rest of the year the town is quiet by mid-evening.

Pensacola has more to offer after dark because it has a downtown. The pubs, cocktail bars, rooftop terraces and taprooms of Palafox Street and Seville Quarter fill with locals and young Navy personnel at weekends, and the island adds sand-floored beach bars plus the famous roadhouse at the state line. Neither town has much of a club scene.

Both coasts are flat, and most of the outdoor life happens on the water, with dolphins in the bay, kayaking and fishing. Panama City Beach has the tall dunes and lagoon of St. Andrews State Park, the dune lake at Camp Helen, and dive trips to offshore wrecks.

Pensacola has more variety. The national seashore's bike path and boardwalks cross salt marsh and maritime forest that are full of herons and ospreys. Offshore, a sunken aircraft carrier makes one of the coast's most notable dives, and inland the clear Blackwater River is good for a day of canoeing or tubing.

The two have a similar range of outings, but in opposite directions. From Panama City Beach the pastel planned towns of Scenic Highway 30A are close, and the old oyster port of Apalachicola, with its brick warehouses, lies to the east.

Pensacola looks west instead, to Mobile's antebellum streets and battleship, Fairhope's pier and Fort Morgan. The 30A towns are further away from here. You need a car from either base.

Panama City Beach is set up for families. Condos with pools are the standard place to stay, and a water park, a long-running marine park, a small zoo, a science attraction and endless go-kart tracks line the main road. The St. Andrews lagoon is ideal for small snorkellers, as long as you avoid March.

Pensacola also works well for children, with calm water on the sound side, the aircraft museum, the Blue Angels, the lighthouse climb and the tunnels at Fort Pickens. However, it has no big attraction parks, and some families will miss them.

In both places you will be driving. Panama City Beach is one long ribbon along a single beach road, with a slow trolley, patchy pavements and summer traffic jams.

Pensacola at least has a compact downtown and historic district that are pleasant on foot, and a free trolley runs on the beach in season. The beach, the naval air station and Perdido Key are still separated by bridges and highways.

Neither is a shopping destination, but the shopping is different. Panama City Beach has Pier Park's chain stores and the giant shark-mouthed souvenir warehouses on the strip, and the 30A boutiques are the nearest place for anything individual. In Pensacola, the independent shops, antique dealers and Saturday craft market on Palafox Street feel more local, and the mall is a standard one.

The overall cost is about the same, and both are cheap outside summer. Panama City Beach saves you money if you rent a condo with a kitchen, and long winter stays there are especially good value. In Pensacola you can save by sleeping in town or inland rather than on the island, and the big aviation museum is free. Budget for a hire car in either.

Panama City Beach offers cover bands on restaurant decks and some summer concerts at the shopping centre. For a real stage you have to cross the bay to Panama City's historic theatre.

Pensacola has much more for a town its size. The restored 1925 Saenger Theatre hosts the local symphony, opera and ballet, and a long-running community theatre adds to the season. It is regional in scale, but worth a night out.

Neither town is a place for spa days. In both, the calm comes from a quiet beach out of season rather than from treatments. At Panama City Beach the high-rises are rarely out of sight, and the open dunes of St. Andrews State Park are the main escape from them. Pensacola gives you more room to be alone, because long stretches of Santa Rosa Island are protected seashore with nothing built on them, and an early walk there among the sea oats feels truly remote.