Aqaba or Eilat?

Both towns swim in the same warm, clear gulf, with reefs a few steps from shore, so the water itself is equal. Eilat's shore works better as a beach. North Beach has loungers and watersport rentals right in town, and at Coral Beach jetties take you straight out over living coral.

In Aqaba the free town beaches are narrow, coarse and conservative in dress, so most visitors pay to use the resort and beach-club stretches south of town or at Tala Bay. The snorkelling off South Beach is just as rewarding. What Aqaba lacks is the beach life around it.

Neither town is worth the trip for its food, but they eat differently. Aqaba keeps a local Jordanian table: sayadieh, the spiced fish and rice dish, fish chosen by weight near the old town, and hummus breakfasts with cardamom coffee.

Eilat's meals lean on hotel buffets and promenade steakhouses, sushi and pizza, and the better eating is at the hummus counters and skewer grills in the older neighbourhoods. Aqaba gives you a local dish to seek out, while Eilat gives you more international choice.

Neither is a heritage stop, but Aqaba at least fills a morning. It has the Mamluk fort by the water, the excavated walls of early Islamic Ayla, a small museum and the remains of one of the oldest known purpose-built churches. Eilat is a young town of hotel towers and malls with almost nothing historic to visit. For history it relies on the Timna copper workings or a trip across the border, which in practice means Aqaba and Petra.

Eilat is the one with a night out. On summer weekends and in school breaks the promenade and lagoon fill with bars, pubs and beach parties, and a few clubs keep going past midnight. The music is mainstream pop and dance, though, and midweek in the quieter months it can feel thin.

Aqaba's evenings belong to families walking the corniche and to shisha cafés. Drinking is limited to resort bars, a few diver pubs and the occasional DJ night at a south-coast beach club, and most visitors turn in early before a dive or a desert trip.

Both share the coral and the granite mountains, but Aqaba has the bigger prize inland: Wadi Rum, an hour away, with red sandstone peaks, natural arches and Bedouin camps under very dark skies. Underwater it adds shore dives at the Japanese Garden and wrecks laid down as artificial reefs, one of them a sunken tank.

Eilat's outdoors are close at hand and well organised. It has marked trails through the Red Canyon in the Eilat Mountains, the sandstone formations of Timna half an hour north and some of the world's most easily reached reef diving. Birders have a reason of their own to come, since the spring and autumn migrations pass over the town.

Petra is the great outing from both, about two hours away, but from Aqaba it is a simple drive within Jordan, with Little Petra added the same day. From Eilat it means a border crossing and usually an organised tour, which makes for a long day even when the formalities are handled for you.

Eilat's other options are Timna, the Arava kibbutzim and a short hop across to Aqaba's fort and souk, because the empty Negev cuts it off from the rest of Israel. Aqaba has few other outings either, and visitors save the Dead Sea and Amman for a route north.

Eilat is built for family vacations in a way Aqaba is not. Besides the calm sea and hotel kids' clubs, children can watch the reef through glass at the underwater observatory with its shark and turtle tanks, see dolphins in their sheltered bay and skate at a mall ice rink.

Aqaba has the same calm, shallow water, glass-bottomed boats and resort pools, and Jordanians welcome children everywhere, including in restaurants late in the evening. Beyond that there is little for them to do, so a night in a Wadi Rum camp often ends up being the highlight for older children.

Eilat's hotels, North Beach, the promenade and the malls are all a short walk from each other, and buses and taxis cover the run south to the reef beaches. In Aqaba only the old centre around the fort and markets is walkable, and the resorts and dive sites strung along the coast to Tala Bay mean taxis, shuttles or a hire car. In both towns the desert needs a car or a tour, and for much of the year the midday heat makes walking hard.

Aqaba's shopping is limited to the old market streets around the centre, which sell spices, dates, Dead Sea mud and salts, and bottles of sand layered into desert scenes. Its tax-free status makes perfume, electronics and alcohol cheaper than elsewhere in Jordan. Still, there is no fashion, and real handwork such as woven rugs or embroidery is hard to find among the mass-produced souvenirs.

Eilat gives a shopper clearly more to do. Its VAT-free malls by the lagoon carry chain fashion, sportswear, electronics and cosmetics, and the promenade stalls sell swimwear and sunglasses. Jewellery set with blue-green Eilat stone makes a local keepsake. Little of it will be new to a visitor from abroad, but it easily fills a hot afternoon, while most people in Aqaba buy a few spices and leave it there.

Aqaba is the far cheaper base, at least on its local side. Street food, the town's fish restaurants, taxis and simple central hotels cost little, though the resort strip, dive courses, desert tours and the entrance to Petra push a comfortable beach stay towards Mediterranean resort prices.

Eilat is expensive throughout. Hotels, meals and tours cost more than at typical European resorts, and prices peak during Jewish festivals, school vacations and summer weekends. Midweek stays, self-catering apartments and hummus counters help, and the VAT exemption softens restaurant bills, but Eilat still costs clearly more.

Neither town has a theatre or a concert season, but Eilat offers a little more. It has its long-running jazz festival by the Red Sea, concerts by Israeli performers during the festivals and the summer season, and musicians in the promenade bars. In Aqaba live music means a singer in a hotel lounge, and the performance most visitors remember is Bedouin music around a fire in Wadi Rum.

Both are places to unwind in the winter sun rather than spa destinations, and the resort hotels in each have spas using Dead Sea mud and salts. The difference is in kind. Aqaba has traditional Turkish baths in town for a simple steam, scrub and massage. In Eilat, how restful it feels depends on when you go: peaceful midweek in the quieter months, noisy when festivals and school vacations fill the town.