Fort Lauderdale or Varadero?

Both are long strips of pale sand on warm water, but Varadero has the better beach. Nearly the whole northern shore of the Hicacos Peninsula is powdery sand facing shallow, sheltered turquoise water. It gets emptier towards the coves at the eastern tip.

Fort Lauderdale's beach is broad, lifeguarded and backed by the palm-lined A1A promenade, with the city right behind it. Its strength is variety: you can snorkel the reef from the shore at Lauderdale-by-the-Sea, and Hollywood's Broadwalk has a more local feel. The weak points differ too. Fort Lauderdale gets summer storms and seaweed, while Varadero gets winter cold fronts that bring wind, waves and red flags.

Fort Lauderdale eats much better. You can have grilled grouper or stone crab on an Intracoastal dock, choose from the restaurant terraces on Las Olas, or try the Jamaican, Haitian and Cuban cooking of the inland suburbs. Miami is close for a serious dinner.

In Varadero most meals are resort buffets. The few private restaurants in town cook ropa vieja, roast pork and lobster with whatever ingredients they can find. The best things there are a rum daiquiri, ripe tropical fruit and strong Cuban coffee rather than a meal you will remember.

Neither is a sightseeing destination, but Fort Lauderdale can fill a day. There is the Bonnet House estate and its gardens, the pioneer Stranahan House on the New River and a solid modern collection at the NSU Art Museum.

Varadero's list is shorter still: the Du Pont family's Xanadu Mansion on its headland, a small museum in a wooden summer house and the pre-Columbian drawings in the Cueva de Ambrosio. A few hours cover all of it.

Fort Lauderdale offers far more ways to spend an evening. The beach bars on A1A fill from late afternoon, Himmarshee Street keeps a young crowd out late and Las Olas has wine terraces. Wilton Manors, one of the country's best-known gay neighbourhoods, has a whole row of bars and drag shows.

Varadero's nights mostly stay inside the resort, with lobby bars and animation shows. The town's open-air bars, salsa clubs and disco in a limestone cave are cheerful, and the local dancers are impressive to watch, but most evenings end well before dawn.

Both places are flat, and in both the outdoors mostly means the water. Fort Lauderdale has more to offer: hundreds of kilometres of canals and the Intracoastal for kayaking and paddleboarding, reefs and sunk wrecks to dive close to shore, the coastal hammock of Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, and the Everglades less than an hour west for airboats, alligators and wading birds.

Varadero has catamaran trips to the offshore cays, reef snorkelling, kitesurfing in the winter winds and the short cactus-and-cave trails of the Varahicacos reserve. The green Yumuri valley by Matanzas is close enough for an easy half-day of walks and views, but the Zapata wetlands, its answer to the Everglades, take a long day, and there are no hills to hike nearby.

The two are about level here, but the trips are very different. From Fort Lauderdale the big day out is modern Miami, with Art Deco Miami Beach, the Wynwood murals and Little Havana. Palm Beach and Delray Beach are polished stops up the coast, and Key Largo is a long day to the south.

From Varadero the trips are about history: Old Havana and the Malecón about two hours away, the bridges and nineteenth-century theatre of Matanzas, the horse carts of Cárdenas and the Bay of Pigs museum at Playa Girón. Getting there means a tour or a driver rather than a train.

Both offer children warm, gentle water, but Fort Lauderdale is the easier base for a family. It adds a good hands-on science museum with an aquarium, Everglades airboat rides and a butterfly garden. If anything is forgotten or goes wrong, the shops and medical care of an American city are close at hand.

Varadero's all-inclusive resorts, with kids' clubs and shallow water right off the sand, make beach days simple, and Cubans are warm with children. Beyond the beach there is little for them, though. Parents need to pack nappies, medicines and sun cream, because these are hard to find locally and medical facilities are basic.

Neither is easy to explore without transport, but each has a walkable core. In Fort Lauderdale it is the triangle of beach, Las Olas and downtown, linked by water taxis and free trolleys, with trains north and south for day trips. Beyond that triangle, you need a car.

In Varadero the old town's grid of numbered streets is pleasant on foot. The tourist bus, coco-taxis, horse carriages and rented bikes cover the long line of resorts. Leaving the peninsula, however, means a transfer, a tour or a hired driver.

Fort Lauderdale is a real place to shop. Las Olas has boutiques and resort fashion, one of the country's largest outlet malls sits out west in Sunrise, and Palm Beach and Miami are close for luxury.

Varadero has craft markets on the main avenue selling carvings, crochet and paintings, plus a small mall for basics. The things worth buying are rum and cigars from official shops.

Varadero is the cheaper vacation if you book an all-inclusive and stay on the peninsula, because its packages undercut many Caribbean rivals. Taxis, excursions and private restaurants are priced for foreigners, so travelling independently narrows the gap.

Fort Lauderdale is expensive for most of the year. Winter hotel rates, tax and tips on every meal, beach-bar cocktails, a hire car and parking all add up. The beach and promenade are free, and a summer stay or an apartment or older motel a few blocks back from the sand will lower the bill.

For a planned evening at a show, Fort Lauderdale has the stage. The Broward Center on the New River and the Parker Playhouse bring touring Broadway musicals, ballet and concerts, and a few downtown venues host touring bands.

Varadero has no theatre or concert hall, but live music is everywhere and often very good. There are son trios in hotel lobbies, salsa bands in the clubs and cabaret with rumba in the resorts. For ballet or serious Cuban music, you go to Havana.

Neither has a bathing tradition, and both offer resort spas and a slow pace in roughly equal measure. Fort Lauderdale adds day spas on Las Olas, sunrise yoga on the sand and long morning walks along the promenade.

In Varadero, treatments often take place in open-air cabins by the sea, though standards vary. Its real strength is having nothing to organise, especially in the quiet resorts at the eastern end of the peninsula.