Marco Island or Orlando?

Here the gap is wide. Marco Island's western shore is one long sweep of fine pale sand on the Gulf, with shallow, calm water, shelling at low tide and the tidal lagoon at Tigertail for wading, so the beach is literally the vacation.

Orlando is inland, and reaching Cocoa Beach or New Smyrna Beach on the Atlantic takes about an hour, with the calmer Gulf sands near Clearwater twice that. For most visitors the sea becomes a single day out, and daily swimming means hotel pools and water parks.

Neither is a food destination, but Orlando gives you more range. Marco Island eats almost entirely Gulf seafood, grouper, shrimp and stone crab in winter, best enjoyed dockside in Goodland, and beyond that the choice narrows quickly to steakhouses and Italian places.

Orlando's visitor diet of chains and park counters is dull, but Epcot's World Showcase adds variety, and a drive out to the Vietnamese kitchens of Mills 50 or the chef-led rooms of Winter Park and Audubon Park rewards anyone who looks.

Culture is thin in both, though Orlando has slightly more to see. Marco Island's one real stop is the historical museum, with its story of the Calusa and the carved wooden figures found on the island. Orlando counts the Morse Museum in Winter Park, with its Tiffany chapel, among its best sights, plus the art museums in Loch Haven Park, which together fill a day better than anything on the island.

Marco Island goes quiet after sunset drinks and dinner, with a few resort lounges and the dockside bars of Goodland on winter weekend afternoons, and nothing that runs late.

Orlando offers a real choice: easygoing themed bars at Disney Springs and CityWalk, or a student-heavy downtown around Orange Avenue and Church Street with clubs open late on weekends, plus a relaxed gay scene in Ivanhoe Village. It is the only one of the two for a proper night out.

Marco Island sits right on the edge of the Ten Thousand Islands, so paddling through mangroves, dolphin trips, manatees in the canals and fine fishing for snook and tarpon begin at the hotel door, with the Everglades and Big Cypress within an hour.

Orlando's nature takes more effort to reach but is different in character: clear freshwater springs such as Wekiwa and Blue Spring, airboats on the Kissimmee headwaters, and the lagoons of Merritt Island on the way to the coast. Pleasant, but rarely the reason for the trip.

Orlando has the better list, led by the Kennedy Space Center with its Saturn V and shuttle Atlantis, and with St Augustine's Spanish fort, Tampa's Ybor City and the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg all within a long day.

From Marco Island the outings are gentler: Naples for its pier and galleries, Everglades City and Chokoloskee, and the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers. Its best excursions lead into the swamps and mangroves rather than into towns.

Orlando is built for children on a scale nothing else matches: the Disney parks, Universal's film worlds for older kids, SeaWorld, Legoland, and hotels with bunk rooms and character breakfasts. The costs are queues, heat and sheer size.

Marco Island suits young children in a simpler way, with calm shallow water, soft sand, the Tigertail lagoon and resort kids' clubs, but anything resembling an attraction means driving to the zoo in Naples.

Both assume you have a car, but Marco Island is the easier of the two day to day. The island is small and flat, with cycle paths linking beach, plazas and restaurants, so short trips need no driving in the cooler months.

Orlando spreads along Interstate 4, with parks, hotel zones and downtown far apart and roads unfriendly to pedestrians. Only families staying inside the Disney or Universal resorts can do without a car, thanks to their monorail, boats and buses.

Orlando is a real shopping destination for brand hunters, with big premium outlets on International Drive and Vineland Avenue, luxury labels at the Mall at Millenia and the tree-lined boutiques of Park Avenue.

Marco Island has only small plazas of beachwear, galleries and shell souvenirs; its shoppers drive to Fifth Avenue South in Naples.

Neither is cheap, but Orlando is easier on a budget. Its huge supply of off-site rooms along International Drive and in Kissimmee is fairly priced, and the real cost lies in park tickets and extras, which you can control.

Marco Island is expensive from the hotel up, especially from January to April, and dinners are priced for a well-off winter crowd. Summer rates and weekly condo rentals soften it, but it never feels like a bargain.

Orlando has more to watch. The Dr. Phillips Center brings touring Broadway shows and the Philharmonic, Orlando Shakespeare Theater plays in Loch Haven Park and the spring Fringe is long established, while the resorts add polished stage shows and fireworks.

On Marco Island live performance means a resort guitarist in winter and a small community theatre; the nearest orchestra plays in Naples.

Marco Island is the place to slow down. Its pace is unhurried, the evenings are quiet and the beachfront resorts have spas and pools looking over the Gulf.

Orlando has plenty of spas and lazy rivers too, but they serve as recovery between early, crowded park days rather than as a reason to visit, and calm comes mostly from a drive out to Winter Park's lakes. Neither has a bathing tradition.