Marco Island or Trinidad, Cuba?

Marco Island has the stronger beach because the sand is the island itself. A long, soft crescent runs along the western shore right in front of the hotels, with shelling at low tide and the sandbar and wading lagoon at Tigertail. Undeveloped Keewaydin Island is a short boat ride away.

Trinidad's beach takes some travel to reach. Playa Ancon is a pleasant strip of pale sand about a quarter of an hour out of town, with smaller, more local La Boca nearer in. It does have two things Marco lacks: reef snorkelling just offshore and Caribbean water that stays warm in January.

Neither place is one to travel for food, but they disappoint in different ways. Marco Island serves dependable Gulf seafood, with grouper, shrimp and winter stone crab at waterfront grills and the dockside shacks of Goodland. Naples is close by for a more polished dinner.

Trinidad's best meals are often at the table of your casa particular, with rice and beans, roast pork and lobster, and canchanchara in a clay cup. Menus repeat from place to place, though, and depend on whatever supplies have arrived.

This is where the two differ most. Trinidad is a sugar-era town preserved almost whole, with pastel houses behind wooden grilles, the Plaza Mayor with its church and mansions, and the San Francisco bell tower above the rooftops. Simply walking the streets is the main sight.

Marco Island was built mostly from the 1960s on, and it has little to see beyond the historical museum and its story of the Calusa people and their carved figures. Anyone curious about history will cover it in a morning and then head to Naples.

Trinidad has the livelier evenings. Locals and travellers gather on the stone steps by the Plaza Mayor for rum and salsa until late, and there is a nightclub inside a cave on the hill. It is a small scene that repeats itself night after night, but it is genuinely sociable.

Marco Island winds down after sunset drinks and dinner. Its marina bars and resort lounges suit a mellow, older crowd, and nothing stays open late.

Both offer a lot outdoors, but the landscapes could hardly be more different. Marco Island is flat and watery: kayaking through mangrove channels, dolphins and manatees, first-rate inshore fishing, and the alligators and cypress boardwalks of the Everglades and Big Cypress within an hour.

Trinidad has height. The Escambray mountains rise behind the town, with steep forest trails to the waterfalls at Topes de Collantes, horse rides through the sugar valley and reef diving off Ancon. In both places the dry months from December to April are the comfortable time to be out.

Trinidad has much richer excursions. The Valle de los Ingenios, with its mill ruins and the Manaca Iznaga tower, starts at the edge of town. Cienfuegos' neoclassical bayfront, the old core of Sancti Spiritus and the Che Guevara memorial at Santa Clara are all within a couple of hours, though only by shared taxi, hire car or tour.

From Marco Island the list is shorter but easier to drive. There is Naples' pier and gallery streets, the old trading post at Chokoloskee, the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers and the shell beaches of Sanibel. The best outings here are into the swamps rather than towns.

Marco Island is far easier with children. Soft sand, calm shallow water, the Tigertail lagoon and resort kids' clubs fill the days, and the zoo and children's museum in Naples are half an hour away for a change of scene.

Trinidad welcomes children warmly, and older ones will enjoy the horse rides and waterfall pools. But pushchairs are useless on the big cobbles, nothing is designed for young visitors, and power cuts and unreliable food and medicine supplies add real strain.

Trinidad is easier on foot. The whole old town is a short walk across, and many lanes are closed to cars, though the cobbles and slopes call for good shoes. Leaving town is the hard part, with taxis, bikes and slow coaches instead of reliable buses.

Marco Island is flat enough to cycle between the beach and the shops, but everything beyond the island, from the airport to the Everglades, assumes you have a car.

Shopping is a minor part of a trip to either place, but what you would buy is very different. Trinidad sells handmade goods: embroidered tablecloths and crochet blouses in the open-air craft lanes, pottery from family workshops, and local paintings. Marco Island's plazas sell resort wear and shell décor, and the real draw is the boutiques and malls of Naples' Fifth Avenue South, half an hour away.

On Marco Island the money goes on the room and the table. Beachfront resorts and condo rentals are at their dearest from January to April, when restaurants also price for a well-off winter crowd, and a hire car is a fixed cost from the first day. The heat and storms of summer bring room rates down a long way, and a weekly condo with a kitchen lets families and groups cook rather than eat out, but even then it never feels cheap.

Trinidad costs far less overall, and a room in a family home is the smallest part of the bill. The extras are what add up, because they are priced for visitors: paladar dinners above what locals pay, taxis out to Ancon and up to Topes de Collantes, guided tours, and a night in one of the beach resorts if you want one. Carry enough cash, since cards are often refused.

Trinidad's music is the better reason to travel. Son and salsa play nightly at the Casa de la Musica, older musicians sing trova at the Casa de la Trova, and Afro-Cuban rumba is performed at the Palenque de los Congos Reales. It all belongs to one tradition, but it is played with real skill.

Marco Island has a community theatre and winter guitarists in resort bars. For orchestral concerts and touring shows you would drive to the Naples performing arts centre, which offers the formal stage that Trinidad lacks.

Marco Island is the better place to unwind. Its quiet pace and the full-service spas of the beachfront resorts, with pools facing the Gulf, make an unhurried week easy, even without any bathing tradition.

Trinidad's slow rhythm of shaded courtyards and doorstep rocking chairs is appealing, but roosters at dawn, horse carts, late music and power cuts that stop the fans all disturb the rest. The beach or the cooler hills are where to recover.