Key West or Wilmington?

Key West is a place for being in the sea rather than lying beside it. The water is warm and calm behind the reef for most of the year, but the town's beaches are small: Smathers is imported sand, Fort Zachary Taylor is coral rubble, and a proper sand day means an hour's drive to Bahia Honda.

Wilmington has the better beaches by some way. Wrightsville, Carolina and Kure Beach give wide pale sand on the open Atlantic within half an hour of town, though only from late May into October, with rip currents to respect and parking to hunt for on summer weekends.

There is little to choose between them at the table, and both live on seafood. Key West adds a Cuban accent, with café con leche from takeaway windows, conch fritters and stone crab in the cooler months, while Wilmington brings shrimp and grits, oyster raw bars, vinegar-sauced whole-hog barbecue and a craft brewery scene at the north end of downtown. Neither has much international range, so choose by whether a Cuban sandwich or Carolina barbecue sounds better.

Both are towns of old houses rather than great museums, and either is covered in a couple of days. Key West's Old Town is a large district of wooden conch cottages and shaded verandas, with the Hemingway Home, the Truman Little White House and the shipwreck treasure collections telling a story of wreckers, writers and presidents.

Wilmington's historic district is antebellum and Victorian houses under live oaks running back from the river. The Bellamy Mansion confronts the port's history of enslaved labour, and the Battleship North Carolina adds a Second World War set piece across the water.

Key West is the clear choice for a night out. The evening starts with the sunset crowd on Mallory Square and spills onto Duval Street, where you carry a drink between open-sided bars and old saloons until the small hours, and the gay scene at the upper end is long established.

Wilmington's Front Street fills on weekend nights with students and rooftop terraces, and the beach towns add bars in summer, but it is a friendly mid-sized scene that goes quiet on weeknights out of season. Neither offers much in the way of clubs.

Both are flat, watery places with no hills for hiking, but the water is different. Key West's outdoors is the coral reef a few kilometres offshore, clear for snorkelling and diving, along with tarpon and bonefish on the backcountry flats and the remote islands of the Dry Tortugas.

Wilmington's is marsh, creek and pine: kayaking to the undeveloped Masonboro Island, surfing off Wrightsville, and trails in Carolina Beach State Park, where the Venus flytrap grows wild. Divers should head to the Keys, while paddlers and birdwatchers will be content in either.

Key West sits at the end of the road, and its one great outing is the ferry to the brick bulk of Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas. Beyond that there is the drive over the Seven Mile Bridge to Marathon or Islamorada, with Miami too far for a day.

Wilmington has more to choose from. To the south lie Southport and car-free Bald Head Island, the earthworks of Fort Fisher and the colonial ruins of Brunswick Town, and colonial New Bern and the port of Beaufort are each about two hours north.

Key West can work for families who love the water, with calm shallows at Fort Zachary Taylor, glass-bottom boats over the reef and the butterfly conservatory in town. Still, Duval Street's drinking and the adult tone of Fantasy Fest are never far away.

Wilmington is the more natural fit for children. Carolina Beach's boardwalk rides and arcades, the aquarium at Fort Fisher and the Children's Museum cover both sunny and wet days, and beach rental houses give families room, though every outing means getting in the car.

Key West is far easier without a car. Old Town is small and flat, bicycles and electric carts are the local way to move, and a car only brings parking trouble, though the rest of the Keys does need wheels.

In Wilmington the walkable part ends with downtown and the riverwalk. The beaches lie 15km or more away, buses are of little use to visitors, and the aquarium and Southport are reached only by road, so plan on a hire car from the start.

Neither is worth the trip for shopping. Key West's browsing is Duval Street T-shirts and Key lime soap, with more interest in the Old Town galleries, hand-rolled cigars and the sponge shops by the harbour. Wilmington swaps souvenirs for independent boutiques, bookshops and antique dealers along Front Street and in the old Cotton Exchange, better suited to a slow afternoon than a gift hunt.

Key West is an expensive island to stay on. Scarce land and strict building limits keep rooms far dearer than in most American cities, and boat trips, diving and the Dry Tortugas ferry add up. Walking everywhere, the free sunset and the Cuban takeaway windows soften the bill, and late summer is the cheapest season.

Wilmington costs noticeably less. City hotels are reasonable outside summer and casual seafood and barbecue are fair value, though beachfront rentals climb in high season and a hire car is an expense few visitors avoid.

Neither is a stage destination, and the difference is in kind. Key West performs outdoors and informally: cover bands on Duval every night, long-running drag cabaret, and the jugglers and tightrope walkers at the Mallory Square sunset, with the Tennessee Williams Theatre and a winter symphony as the formal side.

Wilmington is more conventional, built around Thalian Hall, a restored nineteenth-century opera house, with a community symphony, small theatre companies, summer concerts by Greenfield Lake and long-standing jazz and blues festivals.

Key West makes slowing down a little easier. Guesthouses built around small pools on quiet Old Town lanes and the daily pause for sunset set an unhurried rhythm, as long as you sleep well away from Duval. Wilmington offers day spas and calm waterfront evenings, but its ease is that of a slow town rather than anything built for rest, and neither has thermal baths or a bathing tradition.