Hokkaido or Okinawa?

This is Okinawa's strongest card and Hokkaido's weakest. Hokkaido's swimming is limited to a short midsummer spell on the Sea of Japan coast, where the Shakotan coves have clear water and interesting rocks, but most of the sand is plain and the water stays cool even at its warmest.

Okinawa has warm, very clear sea for half the year. The best beaches are on the outer islands: the small coral bays of Tokashiki and Zamami in the Keramas, close to Naha, and the long white sand of Miyako. Many main-island beaches have netted swimming areas because of box jellyfish, and the better ones lie north towards Onna and Motobu rather than around Naha.

Hokkaido is the better place to eat. It sits at the source of much of Japan's best crab, scallops, sea urchin and dairy, and Sapporo adds its own miso ramen, Genghis Khan lamb and soup curry. Hakodate's morning market and Otaru's sushi counters serve seafood bowls of the morning's catch, and Yoichi's whisky rounds it off.

Okinawa's cooking is more of a curiosity than a feast, built on pork, bitter melon, tofu and seaweed, with rafute, goya champuru and Okinawa soba, plus taco rice from the American years. The Makishi Public Market in Naha, where cooks upstairs prepare fish bought downstairs, is the highlight, but there is less depth at the top end.

Okinawa has more history to see, and it looks unlike anywhere else in Japan. The Ryukyu Kingdom left Shuri with its gate, royal tombs and garden, along with curving gusuku castle walls at Nakijin and Katsuren and the sacred grove of Sefa-utaki. The memorials of the 1945 battle at Mabuni and the naval headquarters add a sober, essential layer.

Hokkaido's heritage is younger: Ainu culture at Upopoy and Lake Akan, Meiji-era Western buildings in Sapporo, Otaru and Hakodate's Motomachi, and the star-shaped fort of Goryokaku. In both places this makes a few good days rather than the main reason to go, though Okinawa offers a little more.

Hokkaido has the better nights out, almost entirely because of Susukino in Sapporo, where towers of small bars, izakaya, karaoke and ramen alleys keep going well past midnight. Niseko adds an international après-ski crowd in winter.

Okinawa's evenings are friendlier but smaller. The izakaya around Kokusai-dori in Naha pour awamori to live sanshin, Mihama American Village at Chatan has a few clubs, and most resort coasts go quiet after dinner.

Both are outstanding, but Hokkaido has more range, and most of it is on land. There is reliable powder snow, the caldera lakes of Shikotsu and Toya, high plateaus in Daisetsuzan that turn red in autumn, and in the wild east the bears of Shiretoko, the cranes of Kushiro and drift ice on the Okhotsk coast.

Okinawa's best nature is underwater: coral gardens and turtles in the Keramas, manta rays off Ishigaki, and humpback whales from January to March. On land it has the Yanbaru forest and Iriomote's mangrove rivers, but no high mountains, and the summer heat makes hiking hard.

Hokkaido makes the easier base for day trips because Sapporo has rail lines leading out of it. Otaru's canal port is a short train ride away, and Yoichi's distillery, Asahikawa's zoo and the onsen country of Noboribetsu and Lake Toya all make full days out.

In Okinawa most outings mean a ferry to another island, and they are usually trips to the sea rather than to a town. Taketomi's coral-walled village off Ishigaki and sacred Kudaka are the most memorable, and after them the list runs short.

Both are safe, clean and easy with children, but they make different family trips. Hokkaido's highlights change with the season: the ice slides of the Sapporo Snow Festival and gentle ski slopes in winter, then the penguin walk at Asahiyama Zoo, dairy farms and flower fields in summer. Its drawbacks are the long distances and the deep cold of midwinter.

Okinawa is a beach-and-sea family trip built around the whale sharks at Churaumi Aquarium, shallow netted beaches and reef lagoons where young children can snorkel. A car is almost essential, and summer heat can wear small children down.

Hokkaido is easier without a car. Sapporo has a subway, a streetcar and a walkable grid, and express trains reach Otaru, Asahikawa, Noboribetsu and Hakodate. Only the far east and the lake country really need a car or a flight.

In Okinawa the monorail covers Naha and little else, so most visitors hire a car and then sit in slow traffic along the west coast. Miyako and Ishigaki each need a flight, and the ferries to the small islands can be cancelled in rough seas.

Hokkaido is the better place to shop, though neither is worth the journey for shopping alone. Sapporo has a city centre built for it, which Naha lacks: department stores around the station and Odori, and the covered Tanukikoji arcade and underground streets where you can browse through a snowy afternoon. Most suitcases still fill with food, such as chocolate, butter biscuits and boxed crab, and Otaru's glass and music boxes are the craft to look for.

What Naha has instead is more distinctive craft. In the Tsuboya pottery lanes beside Kokusai-dori and at the Yomitan kilns you can buy heavy yachimun stoneware, and Ryukyu glass and bingata cloth are on sale too. Sapporo has nothing like them. Away from these crafts, Okinawa offers little more than souvenir stalls and malls, so expect to fly home with a bowl and a bag of brown sugar rather than new clothes.

Hokkaido is slightly the cheaper of the two. Sapporo's business hotels, ramen, set lunches and market seafood cost less than elsewhere in Japan, as long as you avoid Niseko in ski season and the Snow Festival week.

Okinawa is cheap enough for a trip based in Naha, but most visitors spend more because of what they come to do: summer resort rates, a hire car, diving trips and flights to the outer islands.

There is little between them, and they offer different things. Hokkaido leans classical, with the Sapporo Symphony at the Kitara hall in Nakajima Park and the Pacific Music Festival each July, while Ainu dance and mouth-harp music at Upopoy are its most distinctive performances.

Okinawa's music is folk and everywhere: sanshin and min'yo most nights in Naha's izakaya, court dance and kumiodori at the National Theatre in Urasoe, eisa drumming in summer and a rock tradition in Koza.

This is where Hokkaido pulls far ahead. Its volcanic ground feeds onsen everywhere: the mineral waters of Noboribetsu below Hell Valley, Jozankei in its gorge near Sapporo, and lakeside baths at Toya and Akan. A ryokan night with a long dinner and an outdoor bath in the snow fits almost any route.

Okinawa has no hot-spring tradition, only resort spas and a few bathhouses. Its kind of rest is the slow pace of small islands like Taketomi and Kohama, where the days are spent cycling, eating and sitting in the shade.