Miami Beach or Tampa?

On Miami Beach, the beach is the whole point of the place. About 11km of pale Atlantic sand runs along the entire island, from the crowds and pastel lifeguard huts of South Beach to the more spacious North Beach. You walk out of the hotel straight onto it, and the sea is warm enough to swim all winter.

Tampa's own bay shore is mostly seawall. Its real beaches are across the bridges at Clearwater, St Pete Beach and Fort De Soto. The sand there is finer and whiter, and the Gulf is quieter than the busy, green-blue stretches of South Beach, but every beach day starts with a drive.

Both kitchens lean Cuban, but they come from different places. Miami Beach eats upscale, in hotel dining rooms and chef-driven seafood restaurants, with cafecito and croquetas from takeaway windows and stone crabs in winter. Ocean Drive is the stretch to skip.

Tampa's food is heritage cooking handed down from the Ybor City cigar workers. Its Cuban sandwich comes with Genoa salami, and there are old bakeries and the century-old Columbia Restaurant. Tampa has the stronger local identity, while Miami Beach has more polish and range at the top end.

Miami Beach's great sight is its architecture. Hundreds of 1930s Art Deco hotels and the later Miami Modern buildings further north form an ensemble you can explore on foot, with the Wolfsonian and the Bass to add to it. Tampa's heritage is smaller and more local: the brick cigar factories and social clubs of Ybor City and Henry Plant's railway hotel with its minarets, all covered in two or three days. For serious art museums, both send you across the water, to mainland Miami and to St Petersburg.

After dark, South Beach is a reason to travel in itself. There are big clubs with guest DJs until dawn, afternoon pool parties and lobby bars designed for being seen, with dress codes and door policies to match. Sunset Harbour offers a quieter evening.

Tampa gives a good night out rather than a reason to come. Seventh Avenue in Ybor City is the rowdy club strip, SoHo has cocktails and patios, and the Riverwalk has brewery taprooms that reflect a serious craft beer culture. Its big night of the year is the Gasparilla street party in winter.

Neither city has hills or hiking, and in both the outdoors means water. Miami Beach looks out to sea, with reefs and wrecks to dive offshore, paddling on the bay, and the Everglades and Biscayne National Park about an hour away.

Tampa's outdoors are freshwater as much as coastal. You can kayak through cypress swamp on the Hillsborough River, see manatees gather near Apollo Beach in winter and swim in the clear springs around Crystal River. Divers will lean towards Miami Beach and wildlife watchers towards Tampa.

Both need a car for almost every outing, and both offer variety rather than old heritage. From Miami Beach the best day out is across the bay, for Little Havana, Vizcaya and Coral Gables, with Key Largo and Palm Beach further away. Tampa's list is more scattered and small-town: the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, the Greek sponge docks of Tarpon Springs, the Ringling estate in Sarasota and the Frank Lloyd Wright campus at Lakeland.

Tampa is made for a family week. Busch Gardens and its water park, ZooTampa, the Florida Aquarium and the children's museum are all in town. The shallow Gulf beaches are ideal for small children, and Legoland and the Orlando parks are within reach for a longer day.

Miami Beach has warm water and lifeguards along the whole shore, and Mid-Beach and North Beach suit young children well. Beyond the sand, though, there is little on the island for them, and the party crowds of South Beach are best avoided with children.

You can see South Beach entirely on foot, and the free trolleys and the beachwalk reach the quieter north, so a beach stay needs no car. Leaving the island is harder, with no rail link and buses that get stuck on the causeways.

In Tampa a car is close to essential. A streetcar links downtown, the Channel District and Ybor City, but the beaches, Busch Gardens and every day trip mean a drive, often in traffic on the bridges.

Miami Beach has the stronger top end. Bal Harbour's open-air mall gathers the big European fashion and jewellery houses, and Lincoln Road makes a pleasant evening stroll past the chain stores. Tampa is mostly malls, plus the small boutiques of Hyde Park Village. It does have one thing Miami Beach lacks: cigars still rolled by hand in Ybor City.

Miami Beach is the dearer stay. Oceanfront hotels, resort fees, parking and South Beach cocktails all add up, though side-street and North Beach hotels, summer rates and the free trolleys soften the bill.

Tampa costs less, but it is still fairly expensive by world standards. Part of the saving goes on the car hire it requires, and families will spend heavily on theme-park tickets. In both cities, Cuban counters keep lunch cheap.

Miami Beach has the more distinctive programme. The New World Symphony plays in its Frank Gehry hall, sometimes with concerts projected onto the outside wall for an audience on the lawn, and Miami City Ballet is based on the island. Tampa gathers its arts at the Straz Center, with touring Broadway, the resident opera and ballet, and it adds films and concerts in the ornate 1926 Tampa Theatre and indie bands in Ybor City. For opera and Broadway on the Miami side, you have to cross to the mainland.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, so relaxation in both comes down to spas. Miami Beach has many large resort spas with hydrotherapy circuits and sunrise yoga on the sand. Mid-Beach and the stretch towards Surfside make a calm base for a restful week.

Tampa itself is sprawling, humid and car-bound. Visitors after quiet days stay on the Gulf islands across the bay, where days are built around sunsets and long lunches.