Fort Myers or West Palm Beach?

Both give you a fine beach vacation, but on different seas. Fort Myers' beaches are on the Gulf, half an hour or more from town. The water is flat and shallow, which is ideal for weak swimmers, and Sanibel is famous for its shelling. The drawback is that the water turns cool in winter.

West Palm Beach looks across the bridges to the open Atlantic. The water is clearer, the surf is sometimes rough in hurricane season, and the Gulf Stream keeps the sea warm all year. Peanut Island adds sheltered lagoon swimming and snorkelling that the Gulf side cannot really match.

Neither is a food destination, but West Palm Beach gives you more choice. Clematis Street and Rosemary Square have waterfront terraces and seafood rooms, and Northwood feels more local. Away from the centre, Cuban and Haitian bakeries add some real flavour, and there is a green market by the water in winter.

Fort Myers serves the same kind of Gulf seafood, such as grouper sandwiches and peel-and-eat shrimp on a deck at sunset. Beyond the River District's small cluster of restaurants and breweries, though, eating out mostly means chains along the highways.

West Palm Beach has more to see. The Norton Museum holds a serious art collection, and the Flagler Museum in Whitehall tells the story of the railway that built this coast. Palm Beach's Mediterranean Revival villas and the courtyards off Worth Avenue are worth an afternoon of looking.

Fort Myers rests largely on one sight, the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, which make a rewarding half day by the river. Add the royal palms of McGregor Boulevard and a few brick streets downtown, and most visitors have seen the city in a day.

Neither is a place for late nights, and the two go out in different settings. In Fort Myers, evenings are split between the pubs and rooftop bars of the River District and the beach bars around the pier on Fort Myers Beach. There, sunset is the main event, and March brings spring-break crowds.

West Palm Beach keeps its nightlife to a few downtown blocks around Clematis Street and Rosemary Square. The crowd is younger and more professional, and a couple of places have dancing at weekends. Anyone after real clubbing drives down to Miami.

Both landscapes are flat, watery and subtropical, but the wildlife you come for is different. Fort Myers is the better base for birds and paddling. Ding Darling on Sanibel has spoonbills and herons, the Great Calusa Blueway runs through mangrove tunnels, and Corkscrew Swamp has a boardwalk through old-growth cypress.

West Palm Beach's best outdoors is under the water. The Gulf Stream brings reefs and drift dives within a short boat ride, and the Blue Heron Bridge is a famous shore dive. On land, Grassy Waters and Loxahatchee give a smaller taste of the Everglades, and sea turtles nest on the beaches around Juno.

The day trips from each city are quite different. From Fort Myers every outing is by car. You can visit the island villages of Sanibel, Captiva and Boca Grande, smart Naples to the south, Sarasota's Ringling museum to the north, or Everglades City for the Ten Thousand Islands.

West Palm Beach has the one big change of scene: Miami, about an hour away by fast train, with Fort Lauderdale on the way. Its other outings, such as Delray Beach with its Japanese gardens, Boca Raton and Jupiter, are coastal towns much like itself.

Both make an easy beach vacation with young children. What differs is how you fill the days away from the sand. Fort Myers relies on nature: shell hunting on Sanibel, dolphin trips, manatees in winter and gentle kayaking, with a hands-on science centre for rainy afternoons.

West Palm Beach has more organised attractions. There is a drive-through safari park with lions and giraffes, a zoo, a science centre with an aquarium and the free Manatee Lagoon. Neither city has a theme park, and in both you drive to almost everything.

Neither is easy without a car, but West Palm Beach depends on one far less. Its compact downtown is walkable, and a free trolley links the waterfront, Clematis Street and Rosemary Square. You can cycle over the bridges to Palm Beach, and trains run south to Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

Fort Myers is spread across a low-density county, its buses are sparse, and in winter the traffic over the bridges to the beaches and Sanibel backs up. Apart from the River District and the trolley along Fort Myers Beach, you drive.

West Palm Beach is the shopping destination of the two, thanks to Worth Avenue. Luxury fashion houses and jewellers line its palm-shaded length, tiled vias run off it, and consignment shops nearby resell designer pieces from island wardrobes. Antique Row is good for an afternoon of browsing.

Shopping in Fort Myers means mostly outlets and open-air centres along the highway towards Estero. The galleries and shell shops on Sanibel's Periwinkle Way are worth a browse.

Fort Myers is the easier place on the wallet. Beachfront rooms on Sanibel are costly in winter, but hotels in town or by the interstate are much cheaper, and the nature reserves and beaches cost little.

West Palm Beach is priced for a wealthy winter crowd. Hotels on Palm Beach are among the costliest on the coast, and restaurants charge to match. Both cities get much cheaper in summer, and in both a rental car and tips add to the cost of any stay.

West Palm Beach has the fuller programme. The Kravis Center hosts touring musicals, visiting orchestras, dance companies and the Palm Beach Opera. Palm Beach Dramaworks stages serious plays, and an amphitheatre west of town takes big rock and pop tours.

Fort Myers offers a smaller version: Broadway tours at the Barbara B. Mann hall, a repertory company in a restored 1908 theatre and a regional symphony. In both cities the calendar thins out sharply in summer.

Fort Myers offers a simple kind of rest rather than pampering. Its spas are almost all inside resort hotels, so a quiet day here means a condo pool, a massage at the resort and the low-rise calm of Sanibel and Captiva, with their bike paths and early nights.

West Palm Beach has more for a pampered stay, with large oceanfront resort spas along the coast and plenty of day spas and massage studios as well. Palm Beach's quiet, manicured streets and the promenades on both sides of the lagoon suit a slow walk early or late in the day. Neither city has any bathing tradition.