Florida or Hilton Head?

Florida gives you a choice of beaches. The Atlantic coast from Miami Beach to Palm Beach has broad sand and surf. The Gulf has calm, clear water and powder-white quartz sand at Siesta Key and Clearwater. The Panhandle has white beaches on green water, and the Keys feel tropical. In the south you can swim even in winter.

Hilton Head has one good beach: a long Atlantic strand of hard-packed sand, gentle enough for toddlers and wide enough to cycle at low tide. The water is greenish from the tides and marshes, and the swimming season runs only from May to October.

Both serve plenty of seafood, but Florida's cooking goes much further. Miami has the Cuban bakeries of Little Havana and Hialeah, Peruvian, Venezuelan and Haitian kitchens, and a polished upscale tier. Tampa's Ybor City adds the Cuban sandwich, and the Keys bring stone crab and key lime pie.

Hilton Head eats well but simply: shrimp and grits, she-crab soup and Lowcountry boils on decks over the marsh, plus May River oysters in Bluffton. Beyond that, most restaurants are pleasant resort grills.

Florida has far more to see, even if it is spread out. There is the Spanish fort and colonial streets of St Augustine, Miami Beach's Art Deco district, the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg and the launch pads of Kennedy Space Center. Expect long drives between them.

Hilton Head's history is small but meaningful. It centres on the Gullah people, with Mitchelville Freedom Park, a small museum and plantation ruins. For historic streets and architecture, visitors leave the island for Savannah or Beaufort.

Florida, through Miami, is a serious place to go out. Big clubs and rooftop bars in South Beach run until dawn, and Wynwood and Little Havana have Latin dance floors. Key West's Duval Street and the clubs in Tampa's old cigar factories add more.

Hilton Head's evenings are a cover band on a waterfront deck at Coligny or the marinas, mostly for families and golfers. Out of summer, the island is largely asleep by midnight.

Both are flat, watery country full of birds and dolphins, but Florida's wild places are bigger and more varied. The Everglades put alligators and roseate spoonbills right beside the boardwalks. The Keys add a coral reef for snorkelling and diving, and in winter manatees gather in the springs at Crystal River.

Hilton Head is gentler and closer to hand. You can kayak through spartina marsh, take a dolphin cruise in Calibogue Sound or walk the easy trails on Pinckney Island. More than 100km of paved paths make cycling the main way to explore.

The two are broadly level here, but the trips are different in kind. Florida's day trips depend on where you are based. From Orlando you can reach St Augustine or Tampa, and from Miami the upper Keys or Palm Beach, mostly along highways.

From Hilton Head, the old towns come to you. Savannah's squares are about 45 minutes away, Beaufort's antebellum mansions under an hour, and a ferry reaches Daufuskie Island. Charleston works as a long day out.

Florida is the classic family vacation, and Hilton Head cannot match it. Around Orlando, Walt Disney World, Universal, SeaWorld and Legoland form a whole district built for children. Rockets at Kennedy Space Center, shallow Gulf water at Anna Maria Island and Everglades airboats fill the rest of the trip.

Hilton Head is the calmer option: gentle surf, traffic-free bike paths, crabbing off docks and rental houses with kitchens. There is no theme park, zoo or aquarium, so the days are built on sand and water.

Both need a car, but Hilton Head asks much less of it. Florida's distances are long: Miami to Orlando is about three and a half hours, and traffic around both is heavy. The fast rail line on the Atlantic side and the Disney transport only cover parts of the trip.

On Hilton Head, the main road clogs on summer changeover days. Once you have arrived, though, bike paths link the villas, beaches and shops, so many visitors hardly drive at all.

Florida is a real shopping destination. Miami's Design District and Bal Harbour have the big fashion houses, Worth Avenue in Palm Beach has old-money boutiques, and the huge outlet centres in Orlando can fill a whole day.

On Hilton Head, shopping is something for a rainy afternoon: resort wear and galleries at Coligny, Shelter Cove and Harbour Town, plus the outlets in Bluffton. Gullah sweetgrass baskets are the one thing truly worth taking home.

Neither is cheap, and both charge resort prices with tipping on top. Florida's biggest costs are winter hotel rates in Miami Beach and the Keys, theme-park tickets and car hire. There is a cheaper Florida, though: motels on the quieter Gulf beaches, and summer rates away from the parks.

On Hilton Head, summer is the expensive season. Families save by sharing a rental house and cooking, or by staying in Bluffton, and spring and autumn cost noticeably less.

Florida's stages are mostly in Miami, and they are the better ones. The Arsht Center hosts opera and ballet, the New World Symphony plays in its striking hall, Miami City Ballet performs, and salsa and Cuban son are played in Little Havana.

Hilton Head has a modest local calendar: theatre and musicals at the Arts Center of Coastal Carolina, a winter symphony season, a jazz festival and a Gullah celebration with storytelling and dance.

The two are level, and neither has a bathing tradition. In Florida, calm is something you have to seek out. Choose Sanibel, Anna Maria Island or the Keys, or swim in the warm water of Warm Mineral Springs, and stay well away from Miami and Orlando.

On Hilton Head, the whole island is the slow option. Beach walks, bike rides under the live oaks and resort spas set the pace, and the off-season months are calmer still.