Marco Island or West Palm Beach?

Marco Island is the better choice if you want to walk out of the hotel straight onto the sand. A crescent of pale Gulf beach runs the length of the western shore. The water is shallow and has no surf, and the lagoon and sandbar at Tigertail are good for wading and birdwatching. The undeveloped shore of Keewaydin Island is a short boat ride away.

West Palm Beach's own waterfront faces the lagoon, so a beach day means crossing a bridge to Palm Beach, Singer Island or Juno. The reward is clear Atlantic water, kept warm by the Gulf Stream and swimmable through the winter, plus sheltered snorkelling at Peanut Island. Seaweed and rough surf from storms can spoil some days in late summer.

Neither place is a food destination, but West Palm Beach gives you more choice. Clematis Street and Rosemary Square have waterfront terraces and seafood rooms, and Northwood feels more local. Cuban and Haitian bakeries and lunch counters away from the centre, and the waterfront green market in winter, add things Marco Island simply doesn't have.

Marco Island eats Gulf seafood with a water view, and it is most fun at the dockside fish shacks of Goodland. Beyond grouper, shrimp and stone crab there is little range, and for an ambitious dinner you drive to Naples.

Marco Island is a resort built from the 1960s on, and it has essentially one cultural stop: the Historical Museum, which tells the story of the Calusa and the carved wooden figures dug up in the 1890s. It is worth an hour, but museum-goers will end up driving to Naples.

West Palm Beach has enough for two or three good days. There is the Norton Museum of Art, Flagler's marble Whitehall with the story of the railway that built this coast, and the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens. Across the lagoon, Palm Beach adds Mediterranean Revival villas and the courtyards off Worth Avenue.

Marco Island's evening peaks at sunset, with a drink on a waterfront deck and a late dinner, and then the island goes to bed. Its most sociable hours come in the afternoon, at Goodland's dockside bars on winter weekends, and the crowd is mostly retirees and families.

West Palm Beach gives you somewhere to go after dinner. On Friday and Saturday nights, young professionals and winter visitors move between the cocktail bars, rooftop terraces and couple of dance spots on Clematis Street and around Rosemary Square, while Northwood has quieter neighbourhood bars. It is still a modest scene that goes quiet on weeknights and in summer, and anyone after real clubbing heads down the coast to Miami.

Marco Island is the stronger base for wildlife. It sits at the head of the Ten Thousand Islands, so paddling through mangrove channels, spotting dolphins and manatees and some of Florida's best inshore fishing all start from the canals. Rookery Bay is next door, and Everglades National Park, Big Cypress and the Fakahatchee Strand are within an hour.

West Palm Beach's outdoors is more about the sea. The Gulf Stream brings reefs and drift dives within reach, and the shore snorkel under the Blue Heron Bridge is well known. Grassy Waters and Loxahatchee give only a taste of the Everglades, though the turtle-nesting beaches at Juno and Jupiter are a draw of their own.

West Palm Beach has the better list, mainly because Miami is about an hour away by fast train, with South Beach, Little Havana and Wynwood. Fort Lauderdale, the Morikami gardens at Delray Beach and Boca Raton's pink Mediterranean buildings are even closer.

From Marco Island every outing needs the car. You can drive to Naples for its pier and galleries, to Everglades City and Chokoloskee, or to the Edison and Ford Winter Estates at Fort Myers. Miami is across the Tamiami Trail but makes a long day.

West Palm Beach gives families more to do between beach days. There is the drive-through Lion Country Safari with its giraffes and lions, the zoo, the science centre and aquarium, and in winter the free Manatee Lagoon, plus guarded beaches and Peanut Island's calm lagoon.

Marco Island is simpler and works best for small children who are happy with soft sand, shallow water, shelling and a dolphin-spotting boat trip, with children's programmes at the big resorts filling the gaps. Anything built for children means a half-hour drive to Naples.

Both places expect you to drive for most outings, but West Palm Beach has a walkable downtown, a free trolley along the waterfront and fast trains to Fort Lauderdale and Miami. A few days there without a car are perfectly workable.

On Marco Island, a bike on the cycle paths covers the flat island in the cooler months. Beyond that, the bus link to Naples is thin and the airport is about three quarters of an hour by road, so in practice you will hire a car.

Worth Avenue gives West Palm Beach a clear lead. Luxury fashion houses and galleries sit around tiled vias, with designer consignment shops nearby. On the mainland, Rosemary Square has the mainstream brands and Antique Row fills an afternoon with dealers in furniture and lighting.

Marco Island's small plazas sell resort wear, beach gear and shell souvenirs. For serious shopping you have to go to Naples, along Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South.

Both are expensive. Prices peak in winter, when the snowbirds arrive, both get much cheaper in the hot, stormy summer, and both add the cost of a car. The difference is in how you trim the bill.

On Marco Island, weekly condo rentals with kitchens let families and groups cook for themselves. West Palm Beach has free pleasures in the trolley, the Lake Trail and the beaches, and staying on the mainland avoids the hotels on Palm Beach, which are among the costliest on the coast.

West Palm Beach has a proper season. The Kravis Center hosts touring Broadway musicals, visiting orchestras and the Palm Beach Opera, Palm Beach Dramaworks stages serious plays, the Society of the Four Arts adds concerts, and an amphitheatre west of town takes big rock and pop tours.

Marco Island has a community theatre and a guitarist in the resort bar, and for the philharmonic you drive to Naples. In both places the calendar thins sharply in summer.

Both offer the same kind of rest, resort spas and a slow pace rather than any bathing tradition. Marco Island is the quieter of the two, a whole island built around unhurried days, with spa pools looking over the Gulf. West Palm Beach pairs its oceanfront spas with early walks along the lagoon promenades or through manicured Palm Beach, and a town's worth of distractions is close by if you get restless.