Savannah or St. Pete Beach?

Here St. Pete Beach is in another league. Fine, pale sand lines the whole island right outside the door. The Gulf water is calm and shallow and stays warm enough for hours of swimming from May to October, and the quieter sands of Fort De Soto and Shell Key are close by.

From Savannah the beach is a drive away on Tybee Island. The sand there is wide and flat, but the Atlantic is greenish-brown from the marshes and the town is plain rather than polished. It makes a good day out, not a week.

Savannah eats better, and more distinctively. Shrimp and grits, she-crab soup, Lowcountry boil and winter oyster roasts give it a regional cooking tradition of its own. Chef-led restaurants in restored townhouses and warehouses south of Forsyth Park add a more ambitious tier.

At St. Pete Beach the menu is mostly grouper sandwiches, fried shrimp and stone crab at casual waterside shacks, with chain restaurants along Gulf Boulevard. The pleasure lies in a sunset dinner on a deck. For more ambitious cooking you drive to St. Petersburg.

The gap is wide. In Savannah the town itself is the sight. Oglethorpe's 1733 plan of garden squares survives under the live oaks, lined with Greek Revival and Victorian houses, and the cathedral, Factors Walk, the Telfair Museums and the Owens-Thomas House, with its account of enslaved life, are all within walking distance.

St. Pete Beach offers the pink Don CeSar hotel, Pass-a-Grille's old beach cottages and the gun batteries at Fort De Soto. For museums, you cross the bay to St. Petersburg.

Savannah gives you more of an evening. Because drinks are allowed in to-go cups, people drift between River Street's cobbled bars, the City Market taverns and cocktail rooms in old townhouses. Art students keep a few dive bars and dance nights going, although the city still goes quiet fairly early.

At St. Pete Beach evenings centre on the sunset, with tiki decks, cover bands and a crowd that thins soon after dark. For a later night it is half an hour by car to downtown St. Petersburg.

Both sit in flat coastal country with no hills, and both are best seen from a kayak. St. Pete Beach has the edge. It has mangrove paddling trails at Fort De Soto and Shell Key, dolphins that are easy to spot, manatees in the cooler months, roseate spoonbills and pier fishing, all close to the hotels.

Savannah's salt marsh and tidal creeks are lovely to paddle at high tide, and there are herons, wood storks and the oak avenue at Wormsloe. Biting insects and humidity, though, limit the outdoor season to spring and autumn.

Both offer a good spread of outings, but of different kinds. From Savannah the trips are mostly historic: Charleston about two hours north, antebellum Beaufort, Fort Pulaski and the millionaires' district on Jekyll Island.

St. Pete Beach looks to cities and attractions instead. Options include St. Petersburg's Dalí Museum, Ybor City in Tampa, Greek-rooted Tarpon Springs, Sarasota's Ringling estate and, at a stretch, the theme parks of Orlando. From either base you will need a car.

St. Pete Beach is the easier family base. With calm, shallow water, soft sand and hotel pools that open onto the beach, small children are happy right outside the door. Aquariums, a science centre and Busch Gardens are all within an hour.

Savannah can work for families, but it isn't designed around them. Children get shady squares, the free river ferry, trolley tours, ghost walks for older ones and the birthplace of the Girl Scouts' founder. There is no big zoo or aquarium, though, and long walks in summer heat soon tire young legs.

Savannah is far easier without a car, at least in its historic core. The flat grid of squares puts most sights, restaurants and inns a short walk apart, and a free shuttle and a river ferry fill the gaps. Only Bonaventure, Wormsloe and Tybee need wheels.

St. Pete Beach is a long, narrow strip along Gulf Boulevard. The beach trolley and the walkable centre of Pass-a-Grille cover the basics, but almost everything else, from Fort De Soto to Tampa, means driving.

Neither is a shopping destination, but Savannah gives you more to browse. Broughton Street has restored storefronts with boutiques and home-goods shops, art-school shops sell work by students, and antique dealers and bookshops are scattered among the squares.

At St. Pete Beach shopping means swimwear, beach gear and souvenirs, plus a few boutiques and galleries on Corey Avenue and in Pass-a-Grille. Malls and department stores are inland.

Both are expensive in much the same way, with full American restaurant prices plus tax and tip. Rates peak at different times: historic-district inns in Savannah climb on spring weekends and festival dates, while beachfront resorts at St. Pete Beach are dearest from February to April, when northern visitors arrive.

Savannah's main pleasures, the squares, the park and the cemeteries, are free and walkable, so you can skip the car if you stay central. At St. Pete Beach the sand costs nothing beyond parking, but a hire car is close to essential.

Savannah has a proper season, built around the spring Savannah Music Festival of chamber music, jazz, blues and Americana in historic theatres and churches. Through the rest of the year there are the restored Lucas and Trustees theatres, a local philharmonic and an autumn jazz festival in Forsyth Park.

At St. Pete Beach, live music means cover bands and acoustic sets at beach bars. The Florida Orchestra and the larger stages are a drive away in St. Petersburg and Tampa.

Neither has a bathing culture, and in both, wellness means hotel and day spas, with the larger resort spas at St. Pete Beach. They differ in the kind of slow pace they offer. In Savannah calm means a bench in a shaded square or the courtyard of an old inn, best midweek in spring or autumn.

At St. Pete Beach you unwind on the sand, with morning walks, long afternoons and the sunset at Pass-a-Grille, away from the spring-break weeks.