Clearwater or Palm Beach?

Clearwater has the better beach for most people. Its powder-white sand runs for miles along a barrier island, the gentle Gulf slope lets you wade far out, and Sand Key, Caladesi and Honeymoon Island give you quieter, wilder sand nearby.

Palm Beach has the warmer, clearer sea, especially in winter, but less beach to enjoy it from. Much of the island's shore is backed by seawalls and private estates and shrinks at high tide, so the wider stretches are a drive away at Singer Island, Juno or Delray. Peanut Island's shallow lagoon is its best answer to Clearwater's easy wading.

Neither is a place to travel for the food, but Palm Beach eats better. On the island that means formal Italian and French rooms and long terrace lunches off Worth Avenue, and over the bridge West Palm Beach adds Cuban bakeries, Caribbean takeaways and a waterfront green market.

Clearwater is simpler: blackened grouper sandwiches at dockside shacks, shrimp baskets and sunset drinks, with plenty of chains along the beach. Its best meal may be an outing to the Greek tavernas of Tarpon Springs.

Here Palm Beach is far ahead. Whitehall, Flagler's 1902 marble mansion, is a proper visit, Mizner's Mediterranean Revival vias and Bethesda-by-the-Sea shape the town, and the Norton Museum across the lagoon has a serious collection.

Clearwater offers a restored 1920s theatre and a few old buildings on the downtown bluff, and that is about all. Its culture is borrowed from St Petersburg and Tampa, which means a drive.

Both are quiet at night, but they are quiet in different ways. In Clearwater the evening happens on the beach itself: the sunset crowd at Pier 60, then tiki decks and cover bands, and things get louder in spring.

Palm Beach is dinner and a grand hotel bar, and the island is asleep by eleven. To go out you cross to Clematis Street in West Palm Beach, where a few dance spots fill at weekends. For a real night out, Clearwater people head to Ybor City in Tampa.

Both have flat, watery landscapes, and the difference is whether you go out on the water or under it. Clearwater is about calm-water paddling in mangrove channels, dolphins in the harbour, the wild state-park islands and easy rides on the Pinellas Trail.

Palm Beach is better under the surface. Reefs lie close offshore, and the shallow dive site at Blue Heron Bridge is famous for seahorses and octopus. Inland, the Loxahatchee refuge on the edge of the Everglades gives you alligators from the boardwalks.

Both coasts have plenty within reach, but Clearwater's has more variety. From there you can see the Dalí Museum, Ybor City's cigar factories, the sponge docks of Tarpon Springs, Sarasota's Ringling and Orlando's parks, nearly all by car.

From Palm Beach the big outing is Miami, which the fast train makes easy without a car. Closer in, Delray, Boca Raton and Jupiter's lighthouse are pleasant but fairly alike.

Clearwater is much easier with children. The water is calm with little surf, Pier 60 has a playground, the marine aquarium's rescued dolphins and turtles are a hit, and Busch Gardens and Adventure Island are under an hour away.

Palm Beach can work, but the island itself is made for adults. The zoo, science centre, Manatee Lagoon and Peanut Island fill the days, yet they all mean crossing the bridge.

Both need a car once you leave the centre. On Clearwater Beach you can walk to most things, and a trolley and water taxi help, but causeway traffic slows things on busy weekends.

Palm Beach is nicer for walking and cycling, around Worth Avenue and along the Lake Trail. It also has the one real alternative to driving: the fast train from West Palm Beach to Miami.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Clearwater covers what a beach trip needs, a forgotten swimsuit or more sunscreen, but there is little to browse for its own sake. Its most distinctive thing to take home, a natural sponge, comes from the Greek docks at Tarpon Springs up the coast rather than from the town itself.

Palm Beach makes shopping a reason to come. Worth Avenue is a real luxury street, set in Mizner's courtyards, and across the lagoon the antique dealers of South Dixie Highway suit anyone hunting for furniture or decorative pieces. What neither town offers is much in the way of markets or local craft, so the shopper's choice is plain: Palm Beach for style, Clearwater for the basics.

Clearwater is a fairly expensive resort, but Palm Beach is among the dearest anywhere in the country, with island rooms and restaurants aimed at a very wealthy clientele.

In both places you save the same ways: stay on the mainland or in West Palm Beach, come in the hot summer and lean on the free beaches. Clearwater's condos with kitchens make it far easier to keep a longer stay affordable.

Palm Beach has the richer stage, at least in winter. The Kravis Center has touring musicals, ballet and orchestras, and Palm Beach Opera's short season, while Palm Beach Dramaworks and the Four Arts' chamber concerts add serious smaller events. Outside the season the calendar thins sharply.

Clearwater has Ruth Eckerd Hall for touring acts and orchestras and the small 1920s Capitol Theatre, but no opera or resident company, so for that you go to Tampa.

Palm Beach is the more restful place to recharge. The island is quiet, manicured and slow, and its big oceanfront resorts have full spas with salt-water pools and fitness programmes, plus yoga on the beach. A spa day there is the point of the stay.

Clearwater relaxes you through its pace rather than its spas: a pool, a balcony and an evening by the marina, with little worth an early start. Spring break and the summer heat break that calm.