Fort Myers or Varadero?

These are both good beach destinations, but Varadero is the real thing. It has about 20km of pale, powdery sand straight in front of the hotels, on calm turquoise water that stays warm enough for swimming all year. The east end is quiet around the resorts, while the town end is where Cuban families come at weekends.

The Fort Myers beaches are fine too, with soft sand and shallow, gentle water. However, they lie out on the barrier islands, a drive of half an hour or more from the city. Their particular appeal is shelling on Sanibel, and the winter sea is noticeably cooler than Cuba's.

Neither place is somewhere to travel to for the food, but Fort Myers feeds you better. It has fresh Gulf seafood such as grouper, stone crab and shrimp, eaten on decks over the water, a small cluster of independent restaurants and breweries in the River District, and better cooking towards Sanibel and Naples.

In Varadero you mostly eat at the resort buffet. A few private restaurants in town do ropa vieja, roast pork and lobster, but what they serve depends on which ingredients turn up. The highlights are the rum cocktails, the fruit and the coffee.

Fort Myers has more to see, although neither place has much. The Edison and Ford Winter Estates, with the laboratory and riverside gardens, are worth a proper half day, and McGregor Boulevard and the brick streets of the River District add some atmosphere.

Varadero's sights take a few hours at most: the Du Pont family's Xanadu Mansion, a small museum in a wooden summer house and the cave drawings in the Varahicacos reserve. For Cuban history and architecture you have to leave the peninsula.

Evenings are low-key in both places, but they feel different. In Fort Myers you get pubs and rooftop bars downtown, sunset crowds around the beach pier and a monthly art walk, with an older winter crowd that heads home early. Varadero is about dancing. Most of the evening happens in resort bars and shows, but in town there are salsa clubs where the locals dance very well, and a disco inside a limestone cave.

Fort Myers offers far more for nature lovers, and most of it is wildlife. The Ding Darling refuge on Sanibel is one of the best places in the country for wading birds. Corkscrew Swamp has a long boardwalk through ancient bald cypress, and the mangrove tunnels are made for kayaking.

On Varadero's narrow limestone peninsula the outdoors mostly means the water: catamaran trips to the offshore cays, snorkelling and diving on reefs and wrecks, and kitesurfing in winter. On land there are short trails in the Varahicacos reserve and the cenote at Cueva de Saturno.

There is a similar amount to do around each, but the outings feel very different. From Fort Myers you drive to polished places nearby: Naples, the island villages of Sanibel, Captiva and Boca Grande, and the Ringling museum in Sarasota.

From Varadero there is one outstanding trip. Havana is two hours away, and one day there often leaves people wishing they had stayed longer. Closer by are the port town of Matanzas with its theatre and the Bellamar caves, and quiet Cárdenas, with its horse carts and colonial streets.

Both work for young children because the water is shallow and calm right off the sand. The difference is how the days run. In Fort Myers you drive everywhere, between shelling on Sanibel, dolphin trips, a hands-on science centre and spring-training baseball, with ordinary American shops and medical care on hand.

Varadero is easier day to day. Kids' clubs and children's pools come with the all-inclusive, and Cubans are very warm with children. But you need to bring nappies, medicines and sun cream with you, because medical care is basic.

Varadero is much easier without a car. The old town is a walkable grid, an open-top bus runs the length of the peninsula, and taxis, coco-taxis, horse carriages and rental bikes cover the rest. Fort Myers really requires one. The beaches, Sanibel and the reserves are spread across a sprawling county with few buses, and in winter traffic backs up on the bridges.

Fort Myers is the place for shopping, if only in the American suburban sense. There are open-air centres and an outlet mall towards Estero, plus galleries and shell shops along Sanibel's Periwinkle Way.

In Varadero you can buy rum, cigars and craft-market souvenirs, and the rum and cigars are best bought from official shops. There is very little else, and even everyday items can be hard to find.

Varadero is the cheaper vacation, as long as you stick to the all-inclusive package, which costs less than many Caribbean rivals. Once you start taking taxis, excursions and private restaurants on your own, it becomes middling.

Fort Myers in high season is expensive. Beachfront rooms on Sanibel book up early, and eating out comes at full American prices with tips. A rental car is a cost you can't avoid. Staying inland or coming in summer brings costs down a lot.

Fort Myers has the proper stage programme, though only in winter. Touring Broadway shows come to the Barbara B. Mann hall, a repertory company plays in a restored 1908 theatre and a regional symphony gives concerts. In Varadero the music is informal but often very good, with son trios in hotel lobbies and full salsa bands in the clubs. There is no theatre or concert hall, so for ballet you go to Havana.

Neither place has a bathing tradition, and in both the spas are inside resorts. Varadero is the better place to switch off. The warm, quiet days need no planning, especially at the calmer eastern end, and some treatments take place in open-air cabins by the sea. In Fort Myers, relaxing mostly means Sanibel's low-rise calm, a bike path and a condo pool.