Boca Raton or Tampa?

Boca Raton has the beach on its doorstep. South Beach, Red Reef and Spanish River parks lie just over the bridges from town, with dunes and sea grape instead of tower blocks, a reef you can snorkel from the shore and an Atlantic that stays warm enough to swim in winter.

Tampa's own bayfront is mostly seawall, so its beach days mean driving out to Clearwater, St Pete Beach, Pass-a-Grille or Fort De Soto. That sand is whiter and the Gulf is calmer, which is lovely for paddling. But it is an outing of up to an hour each way, and the water turns cool in midwinter.

Tampa eats with more personality. The Cuban, Spanish and Sicilian heritage of Ybor City gives it the pressed Cuban sandwich with salami, deviled crab croquettes, café con leche at old counters and a tiled Spanish dining room that has been run by the same family for more than a century. Food halls and Seminole Heights fill in the modern side.

Boca Raton is comfortable but generic, with steakhouses, Italian rooms and sushi around Mizner Park and the plazas. Its real strength is the Jewish deli and bagel tradition, and for variety people drive up to Delray Beach.

Tampa has more to see, and more of it is its own: the brick cigar factories and Latin social clubs of Ybor City, Henry Plant's minareted railway hotel turned museum, and the art and history museums along the river. That fills two or three days, and St Petersburg's art is across the bay.

Boca Raton's story is the 1920s land boom, told through Addison Mizner's Mediterranean Revival arcades, the Old Town Hall museum and a decent art museum. The Morikami gardens are the standout, and after that a culture-minded visitor heads to Palm Beach or Miami.

Tampa gives you a real choice of nights out. Seventh Avenue in Ybor City has dance clubs and a loud young crowd until late, SoHo is the dressier cocktail-and-patio strip, and the Riverwalk adds rooftops and brewery taprooms. Gasparilla turns the bayfront into a huge street party each winter.

Boca Raton's evenings are wine bars and restaurant terraces around Mizner Park, and most of the city is asleep before midnight. Anyone wanting more drives to Delray's Atlantic Avenue or down to Fort Lauderdale.

Both are flat, and in both the outdoors means water and wildlife, but the water is different. Boca Raton looks out to the ocean, with reef snorkelling and diving, Gulf Stream fishing for sailfish, sea turtle nesting walks at Gumbo Limbo and the Loxahatchee refuge's alligators to the west.

Tampa's draws are more inland and freshwater: kayaking a cypress swamp on the Hillsborough River, manatees gathering near Apollo Beach in winter, and the clear spring-fed rivers at Crystal River and Weeki Wachee further north.

Boca Raton has the stronger outings because Miami is one of them, about an hour away and reachable by train as well as car, with South Beach, Little Havana and Vizcaya. Palm Beach's Flagler mansion and Worth Avenue, and Fort Lauderdale's canals, are even closer.

Tampa's list has more variety: the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, the Greek sponge docks at Tarpon Springs, Sarasota's Ringling estate and Frank Lloyd Wright's campus at Lakeland. Each is pleasant, but none has the pull of a big city, and all of them need a car.

Tampa is the bigger children's destination. Busch Gardens pairs roller coasters with an animal park and has a water park next door, and ZooTampa's manatees and the Florida Aquarium fill further days. The shallow Gulf suits toddlers, and Legoland and Orlando can be done as long day trips.

Boca Raton is quieter and very easy with young children, with lifeguarded beach parks, a first snorkel at Red Reef, the turtle tanks at Gumbo Limbo and Sugar Sand Park. Anything larger means a long drive.

Both cities are built around the car, and most visitors in either will rent one. The useful exceptions differ. In Boca Raton it is the train, as Brightline and Tri-Rail make car-free days in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach realistic.

In Tampa it is the streetcar linking downtown, the Channel District and Ybor City, together with the Riverwalk, so a short stay in the centre works on foot. Bridge and interstate traffic slows everything else.

Boca Raton takes shopping more seriously. Its enclosed mall is one of the most luxurious in Florida, Mizner Park and Royal Palm Place add open-air boutique streets, and Worth Avenue is a short drive north. It is polished rather than characterful.

Tampa's malls and the small Hyde Park Village are ordinary by comparison. What it has that Boca does not is a living craft, the cigars still rolled by hand in Ybor City's small shops.

Neither is cheap, but Tampa costs noticeably less. Its lunches at Cuban bakeries and sandwich counters are good value, and hotels away from the beaches are moderately priced, although a car and theme park tickets add up quickly.

Boca Raton is one of the wealthiest towns on the coast. Winter rooms and restaurants are priced for that crowd, and even the beach parks charge for parking. Both cities are much cheaper in summer, in exchange for heat and storms.

Tampa has the fuller calendar, anchored by the Straz Center with touring Broadway, a resident opera company and ballet, plus the Florida Orchestra and the ornate 1926 Tampa Theatre. Ybor City's smaller venues cover rock and indie.

Boca Raton offers open-air concerts at the Mizner Park Amphitheater, conservatory recitals at Lynn University and regional musicals, mostly in winter. For bigger productions, residents go to the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach.

Boca Raton is the more restful place to stay. The town itself is quiet and well kept, its resort hotels have full spas, and yoga studios serve a health-conscious population, so rest and early nights come easily.

Tampa's centre is sprawling and humid, and switching off there usually means moving out to the Gulf islands for sunsets and long lunches. Neither city has thermal springs or a bathing culture.