Panama City Beach or Williamsburg, Virginia?

Panama City Beach is built around its beach. There are about 43km of powder-white quartz sand and shallow green water that warms up through the summer. The quieter sand is at the western end and in St. Andrews State Park, and boats run out to undeveloped Shell Island. Rip currents are a real risk, so heed the flags.

Williamsburg is inland between two rivers, so a swim there means a short drive to Yorktown's small river beach or an hour to Virginia Beach on the Atlantic. Sea nettles can drift into the bay in high summer, and most visitors use the hotel pool instead.

Neither town is somewhere to travel for the food, but the menus are different. In Panama City Beach the meal to have is Gulf seafood eaten casually, such as blackened grouper, shrimp baskets and bay oysters on a dockside deck, with chains and themed restaurants filling most of Front Beach Road.

Williamsburg's table is more regional and Southern: country ham biscuits, peanut soup, Brunswick stew and Chesapeake crab cakes. Candlelit colonial taverns serve period dishes, and Merchants Square has a few bistros and wine bars, with wineries on the edge of town.

The gap is wide. Williamsburg is itself a sight. The restored eighteenth-century capital has costumed blacksmiths and printers, Duke of Gloucester Street runs from the Capitol to the Wren Building, and the Governor's Palace stands at the end of its green. Add serious collections of American folk and decorative arts, and two or three days pass easily.

Panama City Beach is mostly condo towers and attractions from the later twentieth century. The Man in the Sea Museum and the older streets of St. Andrews across the bay are about all there is, so anyone after history has to drive.

Panama City Beach has more going on after dark, though it is relaxed rather than late. Expect frozen drinks at tiki huts at sunset, decks over the sand and cover bands around Pier Park, with summer weekends the liveliest. March is different: spring break turns Front Beach Road loud and rowdy, which suits students and few others.

In Williamsburg a candlelit tavern dinner or a ghost walk is the usual evening. There are a few student pubs near the college and some taprooms on the edge of town, and for a proper night out you drive to Norfolk or Richmond.

Both landscapes are flat, but Panama City Beach gives more to do outdoors, and most of it is on the water. You can snorkel in the St. Andrews lagoon, watch dolphins, paddleboard on the bay, fish from the pier and dive on wrecks and artificial reefs offshore. On land there are tall white dunes and the rare coastal dune lake at Camp Helen.

Williamsburg's Tidewater country is green and gentle. It suits slow cycling along the empty Colonial Parkway or the paved Capital Trail, and kayaking on tidal creeks, where you may see ospreys and bald eagles.

From Panama City Beach, the outings are mostly pleasant drives along the coast. The best runs west on the scenic coast road to Seaside, WaterColor and Rosemary Beach, planned towns of pastel cottages and gallery streets, each less than an hour away. To the east, Apalachicola is an old cotton and oyster port with brick warehouses, and Pensacola's naval aviation museum is about as far as a day out will stretch.

Williamsburg has much the stronger day trips, and the best are almost on the doorstep. Jamestown, with its archaeological dig and replica ships, and the Yorktown battlefield are each less than half an hour's drive, close enough to fit around a morning in the Historic Area. Further afield are the grand James River plantation houses, Richmond's capitol and Civil War sites about an hour away, and the maritime museums of Hampton Roads.

Both towns are built for families, and Williamsburg has a slight edge because it offers more variety. Busch Gardens has rides for every age, Water Country USA is next door, and in the Historic Area children can join a fife-and-drum parade or question a blacksmith before climbing aboard replica ships at Jamestown.

Panama City Beach is the simpler beach vacation, with shallow warm water, a condo pool, a marine park with dolphin shows, a water park and go-karts along the strip. Avoid March there, and take the flags seriously.

Williamsburg is easier to get around, at least at its core. The Historic Area, Merchants Square and the campus form a flat district you can cross on foot in about 20 minutes, and Duke of Gloucester Street is closed to cars by day. The theme parks, outlets and partner sites still need a car.

Panama City Beach stretches about 43km along one main road and a highway, with patchy pavements and little shade. The trolley-bus is slow, and summer traffic on Front Beach Road can crawl, so a car is close to essential.

Williamsburg has the more interesting shopping, though the range is narrow. The colonial shops sell hand-made pewter, silver, pottery and books printed the old way, and Merchants Square adds Virginia gifts and kitchenware. There is also a long-established pottery and homeware store and an outlet centre on Richmond Road.

Panama City Beach offers chain stores at Pier Park and huge beachwear warehouses with shark-mouth entrances. For anything more individual, the boutiques in the 30A towns are the better bet.

The overall cost is similar, but the money goes on different things. In Panama City Beach, accommodation is the variable: condo rates drop sharply outside summer and spring break, long winter stays are cheap, and a kitchen cuts restaurant bills.

In Williamsburg the rooms are the easy part, and the admission tickets to Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown and the theme parks add up quickly. That makes combination passes worth a look. Both places need a hire car.

Williamsburg has a little more to offer, and it is tied to the setting. There are eighteenth-century recitals by candlelight, period theatre, fife-and-drum corps on Duke of Gloucester Street and student concerts and plays at William & Mary in term time.

Live performance in Panama City Beach mostly means cover bands and acoustic sets on bar decks. Across the bay, Panama City's restored historic theatre hosts a modest season of touring shows. For serious music, either town means a drive.

Neither place has a spa tradition, and the calm comes from different things. In Panama City Beach it comes from the empty winter beach and long sunset walks between autumn and spring, though the town is loud in summer and during spring break. Williamsburg offers resort spas along the James River, early mornings on quiet colonial greens and slow drives down the wooded Colonial Parkway.