Cocoa Beach or Fort Myers?

Both have long beaches of pale sand of much the same quality, but they work in different ways. In Cocoa Beach the strand runs the whole length of town, a few streets from any room. It faces the open Atlantic, with greenish water, steady small surf and rip currents, so the lifeguarded stretches by the pier are the sensible choice.

Fort Myers' beaches lie on the barrier islands, half an hour or more from the city. There the Gulf is calm and shallow and much easier for weak swimmers. Sanibel and Captiva add shelling, which the Atlantic side cannot match, though seaweed and algae blooms sometimes spoil the water for a while.

Neither is a place to travel to for the food, and both rely on casual seafood by the water. Cocoa Beach is the narrower of the two: rock shrimp from Port Canaveral, fish tacos at beach grills, dockside places on the Banana River and chains along the main road.

Fort Myers has more range. There are grouper sandwiches and stone crab claws in season, a small cluster of independent restaurants and breweries in the River District, and better cooking towards Sanibel and Naples for anyone willing to drive.

Cocoa Beach has almost nothing to see in town beyond its long wooden pier. Its one great spectacle is a launch rising from the Cape, and for museums or history you have to leave town.

Fort Myers has more to fill a day. You can see Edison's and Ford's riverside winter homes, the laboratory and the botanical gardens, walk McGregor Boulevard under its royal palms and explore the early twentieth-century brick streets of the River District. It is still a short list, but it is a real one.

Evenings are quiet in both, and neither has a real club scene. In Cocoa Beach, going out means beach bars, sports bars and cover bands on open decks around the pier and the short downtown strip, with a louder, younger crowd at spring break. Fort Myers splits its evenings between the rooftop and cocktail bars of the River District, which has a monthly art walk, and the sunset beach bars by the pier on Estero Island, where the crowd is older for much of the winter.

Both are flat coastal country full of wildlife, and the difference lies in the setting. Cocoa Beach backs onto the Indian River Lagoon, where kayakers paddle among manatees and dolphins and, on summer nights, through bioluminescent water. Merritt Island and Canaveral National Seashore add winter birdwatching, alligators and nesting turtles, and the town's gentle breaks are among the steadiest learner surf on the east coast.

Fort Myers has no surf, but it has mangrove tunnels and cypress swamp. You can paddle the Great Calusa Blueway, watch roseate spoonbills at Ding Darling on Sanibel and walk the old-growth boardwalk at Corkscrew Swamp.

The two have outings of similar weight but very different character. From Cocoa Beach the big draws are the space centre and Orlando's parks, with brick-paved Cocoa Village for a half day and Spanish colonial St Augustine as a long excursion.

Fort Myers offers a gentler round of Gulf towns: the manicured streets and old pier of Naples, the railroad village of Boca Grande and the island villages of Sanibel and Captiva. Sarasota's Ringling museum and the Ca' d'Zan mansion make the strongest cultural day, and Everglades City opens the way to the Ten Thousand Islands.

Cocoa Beach is the easier family base. Condos with kitchens and pools are common, surf lessons for beginners are everywhere, and the rockets and the space centre thrill most children. The one caution is the surf, which can pull hard.

Fort Myers has the safer water for small children, and hunting for shells on Sanibel keeps them busy for hours. A science centre and the Shell Factory cover rainy afternoons, and spring-training baseball makes a relaxed outing in March. There is no big theme park nearby, though, as Orlando is about three hours away.

Neither works without a car once you leave your base, but Cocoa Beach needs one less. The town is a long, thin strip, so the walk to the sand is short and a bicycle covers downtown and the pier. You only need the car for the space centre, the wildlife refuge and the airport, about an hour away in Orlando.

Fort Myers is far more spread out. Highways and bridges separate the city, the beaches and Sanibel, and traffic on the bridges backs up badly in the winter season. The River District and the beach trolley help only within their own small areas.

Shopping in Cocoa Beach begins and ends with surf culture. The landmark is the vast, round-the-clock Ron Jon Surf Shop on the main road, alongside smaller board shapers and gift shops.

Fort Myers has more variety without being a shopping destination. There are outlet and open-air centres towards Estero for bargain hunting, and gift shops, galleries and shell shops along Sanibel's Periwinkle Way.

Costs are much the same in both, with full American restaurant bills plus tipping and a hire car that is hard to do without. What differs is when prices peak. Cocoa Beach gets dearer in spring, on launch weekends and over long weekends. Fort Myers is most expensive from January to April, especially on Sanibel, and much cheaper in summer or if you stay inland, with free or cheap beaches and reserves to balance the parking and causeway fees.

Here Fort Myers is well ahead. In season it has touring Broadway shows at the Barbara B. Mann hall, a professional repertory company in a restored 1908 theatre and a regional symphony orchestra, though the programme largely stops in summer.

Cocoa Beach offers mostly cover bands on beach-bar decks. The community playhouse in Cocoa Village and the performing arts centre in Melbourne are the nearest alternatives.

Cocoa Beach does its unwinding outdoors and in small doses. There is beach yoga on the sand, a handful of day spas and massage studios, early walks at low tide and sunsets over the Banana River, best on a quiet weekday.

Fort Myers is calmest out on Sanibel and Captiva, where low buildings, bike paths and early nights slow everything down. Its spas are inside the resort hotels, so a massage comes with the pool rather than a drive into town. Neither coast has a bathing tradition, so on both the calm comes from the place rather than from treatments.