Cocoa Beach or Palm Beach?

Both are long Atlantic beaches and about equally good for a beach trip, but the water and sand differ. Cocoa Beach has one wide, firm, public beach running the length of town, with steady small surf and greenish water. It suits surfing, fishing off the pier and long walks, though you need to watch for rip currents.

Palm Beach has the clearer, warmer sea, brought in by the Gulf Stream, and Peanut Island has calm, shallow water for snorkelling. The town's own sand is narrower, though, and much of it sits behind seawalls and estates. For wide, lively beaches you drive to Singer Island or Jupiter.

Palm Beach is the better place to eat, though neither town is worth visiting for its food. In Cocoa Beach, meals are fried fish, port rock shrimp and fish tacos at open-air grills, which is fine after a day on the sand but not much more.

Palm Beach has formal French and Italian dining rooms off Worth Avenue and stone crab in season. Across the bridge, West Palm Beach adds Cuban bakeries, Caribbean cooking and a waterfront green market. You get more range and more polish, but few surprises.

Palm Beach has far more to see. In Cocoa Beach, culture comes down to the pier and the sight of a rocket climbing from Cape Canaveral. A launch is memorable but soon over, and for museums you have to leave town.

Palm Beach has Gilded Age heritage close at hand. There is Flagler's marble Whitehall, Mizner's Mediterranean Revival courtyards on Worth Avenue, the church of Bethesda-by-the-Sea and the estates along South Ocean Boulevard. With the Norton Museum of Art across the lagoon, that fills two or three days well.

Neither town is made for late nights, and there is little between them. In Cocoa Beach you go out in flip-flops, to beach bars, sports bars and cover bands on decks near the pier, and it gets louder at spring break. In Palm Beach the island offers hotel bars and early nights, so going out means crossing to Clematis Street in West Palm Beach, where rooftop terraces and a couple of dance spots fill up at weekends.

Both sit on flat subtropical coast between the ocean and a lagoon, and they are about equally good for the outdoors, but in different ways. Cocoa Beach is for paddling and surfing: you can kayak among manatees and glowing plankton in the Indian River Lagoon, learn on gentle waves and watch birds and alligators at Merritt Island refuge.

Palm Beach is strongest under water. Reefs lie close offshore, and the Blue Heron Bridge is a well-known site for divers and snorkellers. On land, the Loxahatchee refuge on the edge of the Everglades and the Lake Trail by bike are the highlights.

The day trips are about equally good, and each town has one standout. From Cocoa Beach it is the Kennedy Space Center, half an hour north and unlike anything else in Florida, with Orlando's theme parks about an hour inland. From Palm Beach it is Miami, an easy ride on the fast train, for South Beach, Little Havana and Wynwood, with Delray Beach and Jupiter's lighthouse as gentler half days.

Cocoa Beach is the easier choice with children. It has a wide lifeguarded beach, surf lessons everywhere and condos with kitchens and pools, plus the space centre and Orlando's parks within reach. The surf and summer storms still need watching.

Palm Beach has good family outings, including the zoo, the science centre and Peanut Island's shallow lagoon, but all of them are across the bridge. On the island itself, formal restaurants and boutiques leave little for children to enjoy.

You need a car for most outings in both towns, but Palm Beach is a little easier without one. Cocoa Beach is a single strip along one main road. A bike gets you between your room, the pier and the sand, but the space centre, the wildlife refuge and the airport in Orlando all mean driving.

In Palm Beach, both the island's centre and downtown West Palm Beach are easy to walk. The Lake Trail is good for cycling, and the fast train to Miami means the biggest day trip needs no car.

Shopping is a real reason to visit Palm Beach and hardly one for Cocoa Beach. In Cocoa Beach it means surfboards, beachwear and souvenirs, above all at the giant round-the-clock surf shop on the main road, with Cocoa Village's boutiques for anything more.

Palm Beach has Worth Avenue's luxury houses and jewellers set among Mizner's courtyards. Its consignment shops are full of designer clothes from wealthy local wardrobes, and the dealers of Antique Row are just across the water.

Cocoa Beach is clearly the cheaper stay. Motels, older condos and casual seafood grills keep a week affordable, though US restaurant prices, tipping, a hire car and the space centre ticket still add up.

Palm Beach is one of the most expensive resort towns in the country, especially in winter. Most visitors who want to keep costs down stay in West Palm Beach or elsewhere on the coast, or come in the humid summer when rates fall.

For theatre or a concert, Palm Beach is far ahead, at least in winter. The Kravis Center hosts touring musicals, orchestras, ballet and Palm Beach Opera, Palm Beach Dramaworks stages serious plays, and the Society of the Four Arts holds chamber concerts.

In Cocoa Beach, live performance means cover bands on beach-bar decks, with the arts centre in Melbourne and the playhouse in Cocoa Village a short drive away. Palm Beach's programme thins from late spring, so the gap is narrower in summer.

Palm Beach is the better choice for resting in comfort. Its oceanfront resorts have large spas with salt-water pools and full treatment menus, and the island's manicured quiet suits slow mornings along the lagoon. Cocoa Beach has only a few day spas and beach yoga classes. There, relaxing means the unhurried pace, early walks on the sand and sunsets over the river.