Daytona Beach or Sarasota?

These are two very different coasts, and Sarasota's is the more beautiful. Siesta Key's fine quartz sand stays cool underfoot and slides into clear, shallow, nearly waveless Gulf water, with quieter keys to the north and the shark-tooth beaches of Venice to the south. The one thing to watch is red tide, which occasionally closes beaches.

Daytona Beach offers scale instead. Its Atlantic beach is long, wide and firm enough to drive on, the water is greener, waves are the norm and rip currents mean staying near lifeguards. Surfers and long-distance beach walkers will be happier there than in Sarasota.

Neither is a place to plan a trip around meals, but Sarasota eats a little better. Main Street and St Armands Circle have wine bars and more ambitious dining rooms aimed at winter residents, stone crab claws come in season, and Pinecraft's Amish and Mennonite kitchens add an unexpected note of pie and hearty home cooking.

Daytona Beach is plainer, with chains along the main roads and little fine dining. Its best meals are fried shrimp and smoked fish dip on a deck at the fish camps along the Halifax River and towards Ponce Inlet.

Sarasota has more to see, mainly because of the Ringling, with its Rubens canvases, the Venetian Gothic Ca' d'Zan and the circus museum, which together justify a full day. Mid-century modernist houses of the Sarasota School and the 1920s buildings of Burns Court add interest for architecture lovers.

Daytona Beach's story is about speed: the Speedway tour and the history of land-speed records on the sand. The Museum of Arts and Sciences, with its Cuban art, and the climb up the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse round out a day or two of sightseeing.

Daytona Beach has the livelier nights, though of a particular kind. Main Street's biker saloons, sports bars and beach bars fill to overflowing in Bike Week, Biketoberfest and race weeks, when the drinking spills into the street, and tiki bars carry the quieter months.

Sarasota goes to bed earlier. Its evenings are wine bars and a few cocktail bars on Main Street and sunset drinks in Siesta Key Village, with an older crowd, and anyone wanting a big night drives to Tampa or St Petersburg.

The outdoors is equally good in both, flat but full of wildlife, and the difference lies in where you go. Daytona Beach has Canaveral National Seashore's wild dunes and the Mosquito Lagoon for paddling, the Merritt Island refuge for birding, winter manatees at Blue Spring and surf near Ponce Inlet.

Sarasota's highlight is Myakka River State Park, with its prairies, treetop canopy walk and alligators, while the mangrove tunnels off Lido Key and the dolphins of Sarasota Bay make for gentler paddling on calmer water.

Daytona Beach is the better base for getting out. St Augustine's Spanish fort and old streets lie an hour north, Kennedy Space Center a little over an hour south, and Orlando's theme parks or the lakeside calm of Winter Park about an hour inland.

Sarasota's list is decent but shorter: St Petersburg's Dalí Museum across the Sunshine Skyway, Ybor City in Tampa, Greek Tarpon Springs and the Edison and Ford estates at Fort Myers. Orlando is too far for an easy day.

Sarasota is the easier choice with children, mostly because of the water. The calm shallows off Siesta Key and Lido Key are about as safe as a beach gets, Mote Marine's sharks and sea turtles make a good outing and the circus model at the Ringling delights younger visitors. Its drawback is the lack of a theme park close by.

Daytona Beach puts the Orlando parks within an hour and has boardwalk arcades, small rides and a water park, but rip currents demand close watching, and Bike Week, race weekends and spring break bring noise families tend to avoid.

You will want a car in either city, but Sarasota is a little more manageable without one. Downtown, St Armands Circle and Siesta Key Village are each walkable, a free trolley runs along Siesta Key and distances between sights are short, though the bridges to the keys clog in winter.

Daytona Beach is spread along long, wide roads on both sides of the river, with buses too sparse to rely on. Beyond the beach itself and the boardwalk area, almost everything needs wheels, and big events jam the traffic.

Sarasota offers the more pleasant browsing. St Armands Circle's ring of resort-wear shops, jewellers and galleries, plus the boutiques of Main Street and Palm Avenue, make for an agreeable afternoon, even if nobody comes for the shopping.

Daytona Beach's shopping is practical: an outlet centre, a regional mall, beach souvenirs and, on Main Street, a specialty in motorcycle gear and biker clothing.

Daytona Beach is noticeably the cheaper stay. Its stock of older oceanfront motels and condos keeps room rates down, and diners and casual seafood keep meals modest, as long as you avoid the Daytona 500 and Bike Week, when prices jump.

Sarasota charges resort prices, especially on Siesta Key and Longboat Key from January to April. Summer, early autumn and a base on the mainland ease the bill, and its beaches and state parks are cheap to enjoy.

Sarasota is well ahead on stage, because its performers are based there, while Daytona Beach's mostly arrive on tour. Daytona's best evenings come from the symphony society's winter visits by outside orchestras and soloists. Beyond that, the Peabody Auditorium hosts travelling Broadway productions, comedy and tribute acts, a community playhouse covers local theatre, and in summer the free concerts at the oceanfront bandshell are pleasant but casual.

Sarasota's own companies give it a depth Daytona cannot match: a ballet with a name for Frederick Ashton's work, an opera that performs in a restored 1920s theatre, and Florida Studio Theatre staging new plays. Touring shows land at the purple Van Wezel hall on the bay. Its season, though, is concentrated between autumn and spring, so in high summer the gap between the two narrows.

Sarasota is the more restful of the two. Its whole pace is slow, resort spas on Longboat Key and Lido Key and sunrise yoga on the sand are easy to find, and Warm Mineral Springs, about forty minutes south, offers a natural spring-fed pool that is warm all year.

Daytona Beach relies on resort spas and the simple pleasure of early walks on hard sand, and its calm vanishes during race weeks and Bike Week, so dates matter more there.