Panama City Beach or St. Augustine?

Panama City Beach has the better beach. Its powder-white quartz sand and clear green Gulf water are the whole reason the town exists. For quieter days there is the sheltered lagoon at St. Andrews State Park and the undeveloped sand of Shell Island, though condo towers line much of the shore and rip currents mean watching the flags closely.

St. Augustine's beaches on Anastasia Island are wide, flat and pale, with easy surf, but the Atlantic here is usually churned and green rather than clear. What they offer instead is closeness: the sand is a short drive from the old town.

Panama City Beach and St. Augustine both eat mostly seafood, but St. Augustine's has more local character. In Panama City Beach that means blackened grouper, shrimp baskets and Gulf oysters on dockside decks. Beyond those, the choice is mostly national chains and themed restaurants along Front Beach Road, with only a few more careful kitchens near the lagoon.

St. Augustine has the Minorcan datil pepper, which heats its hot sauces, its tomato-based clam chowder and its pilau. Around the old town and San Marco there is also a small layer of more ambitious cooking and wine bars. That makes a better dinner out than the Gulf strip's chains can offer, even if the restaurants on St. George Street are aimed squarely at passing visitors.

This is where the two differ most. Panama City Beach is a resort strip built after the mid-twentieth century. Its sights come down to the small Man in the Sea Museum and the older streets of St. Andrews across the bay.

St. Augustine was founded in 1565. It has the coquina star fort of the Castillo de San Marcos, a Spanish quarter of balconied lanes and walled gardens, and a Gilded Age layer in Flagler College and the Lightner Museum. Add the Cathedral Basilica, the striped lighthouse and Fort Matanzas, and there is enough to keep a curious visitor busy for days.

Neither is a place for a big night out, and both go quiet early. What differs is the setting. Panama City Beach drinks on decks over the sand and at tiki huts at sunset; it gets rowdy with spring break in March and sleepy in winter. St. Augustine's evenings are spent in pubs, taverns and cocktail bars with courtyards in the old-town lanes, busiest at weekends and in college term.

Both are flat, watery coasts, so the difference is in what you do there. Panama City Beach looks to the sea: snorkelling in the St. Andrews lagoon, diving on the artificial reefs and wrecks offshore, deep-sea fishing and the rare coastal dune lake at Camp Helen.

St. Augustine's outdoors is marsh and river. You can walk and watch birds in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas reserve, kayak through tidal creeks among herons and ospreys, and cycle the coastal road south.

St. Augustine has the wider choice of outings. Jacksonville's museums and gardens are under an hour away and Fernandina Beach is a Victorian port. Kennedy Space Center and the Orlando parks make long but popular days out.

From Panama City Beach, the best trip is to the pastel planned towns along Scenic Highway 30A. Apalachicola's old oyster port lies to the east, and Pensacola is at the edge of day-trip range. Both lists need a car.

Panama City Beach is the easier family choice, because the whole town is built around it. It has shallow warm water, condos with kitchens and pools, a water park, a long-running marine park and mini-golf all along the strip. Avoid March, when spring break takes over.

St. Augustine works best for children old enough to enjoy history: cannon firings at the fort, the lighthouse climb and the Alligator Farm, open since 1893. It has fewer purpose-built attractions, and its compact centre gets hot and crowded on summer weekends.

St. Augustine is easier to get around once you have arrived. The fort, St. George Street, Flagler College and the bayfront are minutes apart in a flat, walkable centre, though you still need to drive or cycle to the beaches.

Panama City Beach is a long ribbon along one road, with patchy pavements, no shade and a slow trolley-bus. A car is essential, and traffic on Front Beach Road crawls in summer.

Pier Park is where Panama City Beach shops: an open-air centre of mainstream American chains and a department store, with the strip's beachwear warehouses and their shark-mouth entrances nearby. For anything more individual you have to drive to the boutiques in the 30A towns.

St. Augustine has about as little choice, but what it has is more personal. St. George Street is mostly fudge and pirate souvenirs. The galleries, antique dealers and craft shops around Aviles Street, and bottles of local datil-pepper sauce, make better things to take home, while an outlet mall by the interstate covers the big brands.

Panama City Beach is the cheaper place to spend a week by the sea. Condos with kitchens let families cook rather than eat out, and rates fall sharply outside summer and spring break, which makes long winter stays especially good value.

In St. Augustine, the historic inns and the hotels within walking distance of the old town are much in demand, and their prices climb steeply at weekends. Saving money there means a chain motel by the highway or a midweek visit, though the old streets and public beaches cost nothing to enjoy.

St. Augustine has a real stage: its open-air amphitheatre in the woods on Anastasia Island hosts touring rock, country and folk acts for much of the year, and there is also a community theatre and a modest classical series. Panama City Beach offers cover bands on beach-bar decks and summer concerts at the shopping centre. The nearest thing to a season is the restored historic theatre across the bay in Panama City.

Neither has a spa tradition, and both rely on a few hotel and day spas. The calm is of a different kind. In Panama City Beach it comes from the empty beach and long sunset walks between autumn and spring. In St. Augustine it comes from B&B verandas, courtyard gardens and slow evening walks along the bayfront seawall, best midweek.