American Samoa or Cook Islands?

For a beach vacation the Cook Islands win easily. Rarotonga's reef holds a calm, clear lagoon all round the island. At Muri you can wade out to the motu, and at Titikaveka you can snorkel straight off the sand. Aitutaki's sandbar islets add a second, even more striking lagoon a short flight away.

American Samoa's best sand, on Ofu, is just as beautiful, but it lies on a remote island with only simple guesthouses. On Tutuila the coves at Alega and Avaio are small and often shallow at low tide. They are also village-owned, so you need permission and good timing, and Sunday swims near villages are best avoided.

Neither destination is a reason to travel for food, but the Cook Islands give a visitor more to work with. There is ika mata and grilled wahoo in beach cafés, a Saturday morning of grazing at Punanga Nui market in Avarua and evening stalls at Muri.

In American Samoa the best Samoan cooking, the Sunday umu feast with palusami and oka, mostly comes by invitation. Everyday eating around Pago Pago leans on diners, fast food and imported goods, and the fish and fruit at the Fagatogo market are the high point.

Both are about living Polynesian culture rather than monuments, and either can be seen in a day or so. American Samoa's culture shows along the coast road, in village fale meeting houses, the tattoo tradition and church after church. Add the Jean P. Haydon Museum in Fagatogo, the Navy-era buildings around the harbour and quiet archaeology such as the star mounds in the hills.

The Cook Islands lean more on old ceremonial stone. The marae of Arai-te-Tonga beside Rarotonga's inland road is the key site. Coral-lime mission churches from the 1800s and a small national museum in Avarua complete a short morning's round.

American Samoa has the quieter evenings of the two. After dark you get a hotel bar or one of a handful of local drinking spots by Pago Pago harbour, and the church-going rhythm of village life, with evening prayer and a hushed Sunday, sets the tone. No night of the week brings visitors together.

Rarotonga has such a night on Friday, when Avarua's waterfront becomes a short, sociable round of bars shared by islanders and travellers. Pago Pago has nothing like it. The rest of the week runs closer to Tutuila's pace, with a sundowner on the beach and an early night, and Aitutaki is quieter still. Anyone hoping for clubs will be disappointed in both.

American Samoa has the wilder, grander landscape, with a national park spanning rainforest, reef and coast on three islands. Tutuila offers the Mount Alava ridge trail and the cliffs and seabird colonies at Pola Island. Ta'u adds some of the world's highest sea cliffs, and Ofu's reef is among the healthiest in the Pacific. The price is heavy rain, overgrown trails and almost no guides.

The Cook Islands are tamer and easier. On Rarotonga you can walk the half-day Cross-Island Track past the Needle, kayak and snorkel inside the reef, and dive or fish for tuna outside it. Atiu adds caves and rare birds. Humpback whales pass both in the southern winter, and on Rarotonga you can watch them from the shore.

Both are poor bases for day trips, because the islands are small and far apart. From Tutuila the one easy outing is the short boat ride to car-free Aunu'u and its crater lake. Apia in independent Samoa and the Manu'a islands both need overnight stays. From Rarotonga the usual outing is a fly-in day tour to Aitutaki with a lagoon cruise, although that lagoon deserves several nights rather than a single day.

The Cook Islands are much easier with children. The shallow, sheltered water around Muri and Titikaveka is safe for small paddlers and good for older children learning to snorkel or kayak. Many resorts have family rooms and kids' clubs.

American Samoa welcomes children just as warmly but does less to make a stay comfortable, with few hotels, sharp reef flats, heavy rain and humidity. Older children who like rock pools, snorkelling and fruit bats will enjoy it, but toddlers less so. Neither destination has zoos, aquariums or theme parks.

Rarotonga is the simpler island. A 32km loop road has buses running both ways that stop wherever you flag them down. Scooters and bicycles suit the flat coast, and nowhere is much more than forty minutes away.

Tutuila also has one main road, but its aiga buses keep no timetable, thin out at night and mostly stop on Sundays. A hire car is close to essential for trailheads and the steep north-coast villages. Island-hopping is awkward in both places. Aitutaki is a short hop from Rarotonga, while the small planes to Manu'a are infrequent and easily grounded by weather.

The Cook Islands have one real buy, black pearls from the northern atolls, sold in small shops in Avarua. The Saturday Punanga Nui market adds pareu, carvings and shell jewellery. Shopping in American Samoa is mostly supermarkets and general stores. The souvenirs worth taking home are siapo bark cloth, woven mats and lavalava from the Fagatogo market and a few craft outlets.

Both are costly because most food is imported, but American Samoa is a little easier on the budget. Its hotels around Pago Pago are simple and mid-range, and daily costs run close to those on the US mainland. The aiga buses and market food are cheap, leaving car hire and the journey out as the big expenses.

The Cook Islands push higher, especially at the beachfront resorts on Aitutaki, and lagoon cruises and inter-island flights add up quickly. Self-catering bungalows and backpacker lodges on Rarotonga are the way to keep costs down.

Cook Islands drumming and ura dancing are famous across the Pacific. Island-night shows with dinner run on several evenings a week on Rarotonga and Aitutaki, so a visitor is almost certain to see them. The Te Maeva Nui festival in late July and early August brings every island's dance teams to Avarua.

In American Samoa, siva and fire knife dancing appear only at the occasional fiafia evening or community event, with Flag Day in April as the big occasion. Sunday hymn singing is moving in both, and visitors are welcome at church in either.

American Samoa offers rest in its plainest form. Beyond the odd hotel massage there are no treatments at all. What it has is real disconnection, in a guesthouse on Ofu or a fale on Tutuila's quiet east end, for people who relax by doing almost nothing.

The Cook Islands add some comfort to the slow pace. The resorts around Muri and on Aitutaki have spas, coconut-oil Polynesian massage is easy to find, and there are a few yoga classes. All of it sits on an island where no building rises above the palms.