Miami Beach or Naples, Florida?

Both are true beach towns, and the difference is in character more than quality. Miami Beach's 11km of Atlantic sand is a social place, with South Beach's crowds, music and pastel lifeguard huts, and calmer stretches at Mid-Beach and North Beach. The water is green-blue and stays warm enough for a proper swim all winter.

Naples faces the Gulf, so the sea is shallower, calmer and clearer, and the evening routine is watching the sun set over the water rather than people-watching. Barefoot Beach and Delnor-Wiggins Pass have dunes instead of resort towers, and shelling after winter storms is something Miami Beach does not offer. The catch is a cooler sea in midwinter.

Miami Beach eats more interestingly, mostly because of its Latin American communities. Look for Cuban sandwiches, croquetas and cafecito from takeaway windows, plus ceviche and arepas, with Little Havana a causeway away. Skip the tourist menus on Ocean Drive and head for the side streets and the cafés of North Beach.

Naples is comfortable rather than exciting, with long white-tablecloth dinners on Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South and almost no street food. Its strength is Gulf seafood, such as grouper sandwiches and shrimp at the dockside fish houses around Tin City. Both serve stone crab claws in the cooler months.

Miami Beach has a real sight in the Art Deco Historic District, hundreds of 1930s pastel hotels you can walk past along Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue. The Wolfsonian, the Bass and the Holocaust Memorial add depth, and the mainland's larger museums are across the bay.

Naples fills a day at most. There is modern and American art at the Baker Museum, historic cars at the Revs Institute, and Palm Cottage and the old railway depot for a glimpse of the young town. Old Naples is handsome to stroll through, but people come for the outdoors, not the sights.

This is the widest gap between the two. South Beach is known worldwide for going out, with clubs and guest DJs until dawn, afternoon pool parties, and Collins and Washington Avenues loud into the early hours. Sunset Harbour's cocktail and wine bars offer a gentler night.

Naples goes to bed early. An evening means a sunset drink at a waterfront tiki bar or a piano lounge on Fifth Avenue South, and the town is quiet before midnight. There are almost no clubs and the crowd is older. Anyone in Naples who wants a big night ends up driving to Miami.

Naples has the stronger outdoors because it sits right against the wetlands. Big Cypress, the western Everglades, the Corkscrew Swamp boardwalk and the orchids of the Fakahatchee Strand are all within an hour. Kayaking the mangroves of Rookery Bay and the Ten Thousand Islands is the best outing on either coast.

Miami Beach is almost all city, so nature there means the water: paddleboarding on the bay, diving the offshore reefs and wrecks, and Oleta River's mangrove trails. The Everglades are about an hour away, and the reefs of Biscayne National Park give it something Naples lacks. Both are flat and hard going in the summer heat.

Miami Beach has the wider choice, largely because a major city sits across the bay: Little Havana, the Wynwood murals, Vizcaya's villa and gardens, and the streets of Coral Gables. Further afield, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Key Largo are each a reasonable drive.

From Naples the outings are quieter: the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers, the shelling islands of Sanibel and Captiva, and the fishing settlement of Everglades City. They are pleasant, but nothing near Naples has the variety of mainland Miami. Most trips from either town need a car.

Both work for children mainly because of the sea, and what differs is everything around it. Miami Beach has lifeguards along the whole shore and resort pools in Mid-Beach and North Beach, but little on the island is built for children, and South Beach's party weekends are best avoided.

Naples has the gentler water, a shallow Gulf where children can look for shells and watch dolphins from the shore. In town there is a zoo with a boat tour, a children's museum and a children's garden. Its weakness is that there is no big theme park or major aquarium nearby.

Miami Beach is much easier without a car. South Beach is flat and compact, free trolleys and buses run up Collins Avenue, and bike share and the beachwalk make cycling easy. Leaving the island is slower, as there is no rail link and the causeways jam.

In Naples, only the small grid of Old Naples around Fifth Avenue South and the pier is walkable. Everything else, from the northern beaches to the Everglades, lies along wide roads the thin bus network barely serves, so plan on a hire car from the first day.

Miami Beach offers a little more, mainly at the top end. Bal Harbour's open-air mall gathers the big European fashion and jewellery houses, and Lincoln Road's palm-shaded pedestrian mall is a pleasant evening stroll past international chains.

Naples is more a place for browsing: galleries, jewellers and resort-wear boutiques along Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South, nautical souvenirs in Tin City's old sheds and outlet malls half an hour north. Neither has much in the way of markets or local crafts.

Neither is a cheap vacation, and the costs fall in different places. In Miami Beach they come from resort fees, parking, and South Beach's cocktails and club entry, though you can do without a car. In Naples the cost lies in restaurants priced for a wealthy crowd and a hire car you cannot avoid.

Both get much cheaper in the hot, stormy summer, and the beaches cost nothing in either. Side-street hotels, Cuban takeaway windows and the free trolleys help in Miami Beach. In Naples, inland chain hotels or a rental with a kitchen save the most.

Miami Beach has the deeper arts life. The New World Symphony plays in its Frank Gehry hall, and some concerts are projected onto the outside wall for an audience on the lawn. Miami City Ballet, the Jackie Gleason Theater and the Colony Theatre add to it, with opera and Broadway tours across the bay.

Naples does well for its size, with the Naples Philharmonic, touring shows, professional theatre and jazz nights in restaurants. It simply has less on the calendar, and almost nothing in summer. Its live music leans towards bands in restaurants, while Miami Beach's leans towards DJs.

Neither has a bathing tradition, and both rely on resort spas, so the difference is the setting. Miami Beach's large hotel spas have hydrotherapy circuits and there is sunrise yoga on the sand. A restful stay depends on choosing Mid-Beach or the stretch towards Surfside, away from South Beach's late noise.

Naples is quiet everywhere, with golf, long sunset walks along the Gulf and a population largely there to unwind. There the calm comes with the town, not with the choice of hotel.