Fort Lauderdale or St. Pete Beach?

These are two equally fine beaches on different seas. Fort Lauderdale faces the Atlantic: a broad, lifeguarded strip below the palms of A1A, often with clear water. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea has a reef you can snorkel from the shore. The sea there is warm enough to swim in all year.

St. Pete Beach faces west onto the Gulf. Its quartz sand is softer and the water is shallower and calmer, with hardly any surf, and the sun sets over the water, best seen from Pass-a-Grille. Fort De Soto and the empty sands of Shell Key are wilder than anything near Fort Lauderdale. The trade-off is a much cooler sea in winter, and the odd spell of red tide.

Both cities serve the same Florida seafood: grouper, stone crab claws in season and a dock or deck to eat them on. Fort Lauderdale has more range around that. Las Olas has a long run of proper restaurants, and the Jamaican, Haitian and Cuban communities inland add jerk chicken, oxtail and Cuban bakeries.

St. Pete Beach stops closer to the shack and the sunset deck. Pass-a-Grille and Corey Avenue have a few calmer sit-down places, and Gulf Boulevard is full of chains. For more ambitious cooking you cross to St. Petersburg.

Neither is a sightseeing destination, but Fort Lauderdale gives you a full day's worth. There is the eccentric Bonnet House in its gardens, the Stranahan House trading post on the New River, and modern art at the NSU museum.

St. Pete Beach has the pink Don CeSar hotel, Pass-a-Grille's old cottages and a small history museum. Its real culture is a drive away, at the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg.

Fort Lauderdale has a real night out, and St. Pete Beach mostly doesn't. Fort Lauderdale offers late bars on Himmarshee Street, wine bars on Las Olas and Wilton Manors, one of the country's best-known gay neighbourhoods, with its bars and drag shows.

At St. Pete Beach the evening is built around sunset at the tiki decks, often with a cover band playing. A few bars on Corey Avenue stay lively after dark. For anything later, people drive to downtown St. Petersburg.

Both are flat and both are about the water, but the water itself is different. Fort Lauderdale is the place for diving and deep-sea fishing, with reefs and sunken wrecks just offshore and sailfish further out. Its canals are good for paddling, and the airboats and alligators of the Everglades are less than an hour inland.

St. Pete Beach is quieter and shallower. You paddle mangrove trails at Fort De Soto and Shell Key, dolphins are easy to see, manatees come into the bay in the cooler months, and the flats draw roseate spoonbills and pelicans.

From Fort Lauderdale, the best day out is one big city. Miami is under an hour south by car or fast train, with the Art Deco streets of Miami Beach, Wynwood's murals and the Cuban cafés of Little Havana. Up the coast are the Flagler Museum mansion in Palm Beach and smart stops at Boca Raton and Delray Beach, and Key Largo, at the top of the Keys, makes a long but possible day.

St. Pete Beach has no single big draw like that, but there is more variety of smaller places. St. Petersburg and the Dalí Museum are half an hour across the causeways, Tampa's Ybor City is under an hour away, and to the north lie the Greek sponge docks of Tarpon Springs and Scottish-founded Dunedin. Across the Sunshine Skyway are Sarasota's Ringling estate and Anna Maria Island, and Orlando's theme parks are just about reachable in a day.

Both work for children, but St. Pete Beach is easier with little ones. The shallow, calm Gulf water and soft sand suit toddlers, and many hotels open straight onto the beach. Aquariums at Clearwater and Tampa and the Busch Gardens theme park are all within about an hour.

Fort Lauderdale's advantages are a lifeguarded beach with showers and parks behind it and the hands-on Museum of Discovery and Science. An airboat ride in the Everglades is a reliable hit. Its surf is a little livelier, though, and Orlando is too far for a day.

You will want a car in both places. Fort Lauderdale has a little more for walkers: the beach, Las Olas and the New River downtown form a triangle linked by water taxis and free trolleys, and fast trains run to Miami.

St. Pete Beach is a single narrow strip with a beach trolley. Pass-a-Grille and Corey Avenue are pleasant to walk or cycle, but every outing beyond the island means driving.

Fort Lauderdale is much better for shopping. Las Olas Boulevard is a pleasant, shaded afternoon of boutiques, galleries and resort fashion. Out in Sunrise, one of the country's largest outlet malls draws bargain hunters from abroad.

St. Pete Beach sells swimwear and souvenirs along Gulf Boulevard. It does have a few independent boutiques on Corey Avenue and craft shops in Pass-a-Grille, which is more local character than Fort Lauderdale's beachfront offers.

Both are equally expensive, with full American restaurant prices, tips and a hire car to budget for. The difference is when the costly season falls. Fort Lauderdale is dearest through the winter and over the Christmas weeks, while St. Pete Beach peaks from February to April. Late summer is the cheaper time in both, and older motels a block back from the sand are the usual saving.

Fort Lauderdale has its own stage at the Broward Center on the New River, with touring Broadway shows, ballet and comedy, plus the Parker Playhouse and a few rock venues downtown.

At St. Pete Beach, live performance means a cover band at the beach bar. For an evening of theatre or music you drive to St. Petersburg for the Florida Orchestra, or to Tampa's performing arts centre.

Neither has a bathing tradition, and the resort spas are much the same in both. The difference is the kind of calm. Fort Lauderdale's comes in early walks along the promenade and slow afternoons by the canals. St. Pete Beach's is the daily ritual of watching the sunset from the quiet sand at Pass-a-Grille.