Miami Beach or West Palm Beach?

In Miami Beach the whole ocean shore is beach, so you walk from your hotel onto the sand and choose your mood by district: the crowds and people-watching of South Beach, resort-backed Mid-Beach or the calmer parks of North Beach. West Palm Beach faces a lagoon, so every beach day starts with a drive or a cycle across a bridge.

What West Palm offers instead is range: clear water at Midtown Beach and Phipps Ocean Park, the broad, quiet sands of Singer Island and Juno, and sheltered lagoon swimming on Peanut Island. The sea is just as warm in both, so the choice is between a beach outside the door and quieter shores you travel to.

Miami Beach eats with more Latin character: Cuban sandwiches and cafecito from takeaway windows, ceviche and arepas, a stone crab house that has been open for about a century, and Little Havana just across the causeway. The catch is the tourist menus along Ocean Drive.

West Palm Beach is comfortable rather than distinctive. It is at its best with grilled grouper, snapper and mahi on a terrace off Clematis Street, or a formal lunch on Palm Beach. Its Caribbean bakeries exist, but they are away from the centre.

Miami Beach's great sight is the Art Deco Historic District itself, hundreds of pastel 1930s buildings that you see simply by walking Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue, with the Wolfsonian and the Holocaust Memorial to round it out.

West Palm Beach has the stronger single museum in the Norton, plus Flagler's marble Whitehall. However, its downtown is mostly modern, and the architecture worth seeing is across the lagoon in Palm Beach's Mediterranean Revival villas. Neither is a week of sightseeing, but Miami Beach's comes more readily on foot.

This is where the two differ most. South Beach runs on big clubs with guest DJs, afternoon pool parties and doors that only get busy after midnight, with dress codes and table service to match. Sunset Harbour has quieter bars for those who want them.

West Palm Beach's night out is a few blocks of Clematis Street and Rosemary Square, with cocktail bars, rooftops and sports bars that fill at weekends and go quiet midweek and in summer. Palm Beach goes to bed early, and when locals want to go clubbing, they drive to Miami.

Neither has hills, and in both the outdoors means water. West Palm Beach has the edge: the shore dive under the Blue Heron Bridge, with seahorses and octopus, Gulf Stream reefs a short boat ride out, the Lake Trail for cycling and turtle-nesting beaches at Juno and Jupiter.

Miami Beach has paddling on the bay side, offshore wrecks and the mangroves of Oleta River. Its real strength is reach. The Everglades proper and Biscayne National Park are both about an hour away, while West Palm only gets a taste of the Everglades at Loxahatchee.

The two are level here, but they differ in what a day out looks like. Miami Beach's trips have more variety: Vizcaya's gardens, Coral Gables and Wynwood across the bay, and Key Largo to the south, though most need a car or tour. From West Palm Beach the fast train reaches Miami in about an hour, but the other outings, such as Delray Beach, Boca Raton and Jupiter, are coastal towns that feel much alike.

West Palm Beach gives families more to fill the days: Lion Country Safari, the zoo, the science centre and aquarium, manatees in winter and Peanut Island's calm lagoon for small swimmers. Miami Beach does the beach-and-pool routine well in Mid-Beach and North Beach, but its zoo and museums are on the mainland, and South Beach can be too loud for children. The trade-off is that West Palm needs a car for almost everything.

Miami Beach is easier without a car. South Beach is compact and flat, and trolleys and buses run the length of Collins Avenue. The trouble starts when you leave the island, with no rail and slow causeways.

West Palm Beach is the reverse. Its downtown is walkable, and its fast train to Miami beats anything Miami Beach has. However, the beaches, safari park and coastal towns are spread along wide roads, so most visitors rent a car.

Worth Avenue gives West Palm Beach the more enjoyable shopping, with luxury houses set along tiled courtyards and vias, consignment shops selling designer pieces from Palm Beach wardrobes, and Antique Row for an afternoon of browsing. Miami Beach matches it on big fashion names at Bal Harbour, but that is a mall at the far end of the island, and Lincoln Road is mostly chains. Neither has markets or local crafts.

Both are expensive, and neither offers an easy way round it. In Miami Beach the costs build up through resort fees, parking and the price of South Beach cocktails and club entry. In West Palm Beach they come from winter room rates and a car you can hardly do without. Summer rates are much lower in both, the beaches are free, and Miami Beach's Cuban takeaway windows and free trolleys make a car-free, careful stay a little easier.

Miami Beach has more on the island itself. The New World Symphony plays in its Gehry hall, sometimes projecting concerts onto the wall for the audience on the lawn, and Miami City Ballet is based here. West Palm Beach's Kravis Center brings in Broadway tours and the Palm Beach Opera, which Miami Beach sends you across the bay to see, and Palm Beach Dramaworks stages serious plays. In both, the season runs from autumn to spring.

Neither has a bathing tradition, and in both, relaxing means resort spas and pool days. In Miami Beach you get the bigger hotel spas, with hydrotherapy circuits and sunrise yoga on the sand, but you need to stay in Mid-Beach or towards Surfside to escape the noise. In West Palm Beach the calm comes with the place, from Palm Beach's quiet, manicured streets and the promenades on both sides of the lagoon.