Marco Island or Panama City Beach?

Both have fine pale sand and shallow Gulf water, so the difference is the character of the shore. Marco's west-facing crescent is calm with almost no surf, so it is good for shelling, sunsets and wading out to the sandbar at the Tigertail lagoon. The empty barrier beach of Keewaydin Island is a short boat ride away.

Panama City Beach is far longer, with some 43km of powder-white quartz sand and clear green water, but it is lined with condo towers for much of its length. Its quiet corners are St. Andrews State Park and the boat trip to Shell Island. Rip currents are a real hazard here in a way they rarely are on Marco, so swimmers need to watch the beach flags.

Both places eat Gulf seafood in casual settings, and neither has much range beyond it. Marco has stone crab claws in the cooler months and outdoor fish platters by the docks in Goodland. Its real advantage is Naples, half an hour away, for a more ambitious dinner.

In Panama City Beach the grouper usually comes fried or blackened, and the oysters come from the nearby bays. National chains and large themed restaurants take up much of Front Beach Road, so the better meals are near the lagoon or at the quieter western end.

Neither place is a sightseeing destination, and each has one small museum worth an hour. Marco's covers the Calusa people and the carved wooden figures found on the island in the 1890s. Panama City Beach's Man in the Sea Museum covers diving history and the navy's underwater research. For anything more, Marco visitors head to the galleries of Naples, and Panama City Beach visitors cross the bay to the older streets of the St. Andrews district.

Panama City Beach has the livelier evenings. There are bars on decks over the sand, tiki huts, cover bands and DJs, and some dancing on summer weekends around Pier Park. Clubs are thin, though, and in March spring break turns Front Beach Road loud and rowdy.

On Marco, evenings mostly end after a sunset drink and dinner. A few marina bars and resort lounges stay open for a while, and the dockside bars in Goodland are at their busiest on winter weekend afternoons rather than at night.

Marco Island is much better for the outdoors. It sits at the edge of the Ten Thousand Islands, so paddling through the mangroves, spotting manatees and fishing for snook and tarpon all start close to your hotel. Everglades National Park, Big Cypress and the Fakahatchee Strand, with their alligators and cypress swamp, are within an hour.

Panama City Beach has a different, smaller-scale coastal landscape: tall white dunes and pine flatwoods at St. Andrews, and a rare coastal dune lake at Camp Helen. Its strength is offshore, with deep-sea fishing and diving on the artificial reefs and wrecks.

The day trips from each are about as good, but they lead to different things. From Marco you can visit Naples, the old trading post at Chokoloskee, the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers and the shelling islands of Sanibel and Captiva, though the best outings are into the swamps.

From Panama City Beach the outings are mostly to towns. The planned pastel towns of Seaside and Rosemary Beach along 30A are under an hour away, the old oyster port of Apalachicola is further east, and Pensacola's naval aviation museum is at the edge of a day. Both need a car.

Panama City Beach is built around children in a way Marco is not. A water park, a marine park with dolphin shows, a small zoo, mini-golf and go-kart tracks line the strip, and staying in a condo with a pool is the norm. The main things to plan around are the March spring break and the rip current flags.

Marco suits younger children who are happy with calm, shallow water, shell hunting and a boat trip to see dolphins, with kids' clubs at the big resorts. Anything built specially for children, such as the zoo, means a drive to Naples.

Neither place has public transport worth relying on, and you will want a car at both, but Marco Island is slightly easier from day to day. The island is small and flat, so in the cooler months a bike is enough to get from your hotel to the beach, the shopping plazas and dinner. The car can then stay parked until you set off for Naples or the Everglades.

Panama City Beach has no such shortcut. Its hotels and condos are spread along some 43km of shore, so a trip to Pier Park or to a restaurant a few beach accesses away usually means driving, and the trolley-bus runs too rarely to help much. Allow extra time on the beach road in high summer. The sand itself is the one place where it is easy to walk from one spot to the next.

Marco's own shops are a few small plazas selling resort wear, beach gear and shell souvenirs. Better shopping is half an hour away in Naples, where Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South have upmarket boutiques and galleries, and there are open-air malls with department stores.

Panama City Beach has more shops on the spot, but they are mainstream: chain stores and a department store at Pier Park, surf shops, and huge beachwear warehouses with shark-mouth entrances. For something more individual, drive west to the boutiques in the 30A towns.

Panama City Beach is noticeably cheaper to stay in. Condo rentals with kitchens are common, rates fall sharply outside summer and spring break, and long winter stays are especially good value, although meals and car hire still cost the usual resort-town amounts.

Marco is expensive, most of all from January to April, which is also its best weather. Only the hot summer brings room prices down much.

Marco has the better access to proper performances, but only through Naples, where the performing arts centre is home to the philharmonic orchestra and hosts touring shows in winter. On the island itself there is a small community theatre and live music in resort bars.

Panama City Beach mostly offers cover bands on restaurant decks and summer concerts at the shopping centre. The restored historic theatre across the bay in Panama City has a modest programme.

Marco is the more restful of the two. The big beachfront resorts have full spas with pools facing the Gulf, there are yoga classes on the island, and the quiet pace lasts through its busy winter season.

Panama City Beach has a few resort spas and day spas. It is only really peaceful from autumn to spring, when the beach empties out, because summer and spring break make it loud and crowded.