Myrtle Beach or Sarasota?

Both are beach destinations first, so the difference is in the kind of beach. Myrtle Beach offers sheer length. The wide, flat sand of the Grand Strand runs about 100km along the Atlantic, with towers, piers and a boardwalk in the centre and calmer stretches backed by dunes at Surfside, Garden City and the state parks.

Sarasota's beaches are shorter and finer: the white quartz sand of Siesta Key, Lido Key close to downtown, and quieter Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island, all on clearer, calmer Gulf water instead of the greenish Atlantic. The sea there is warm enough to swim in for more of the year, but red tide occasionally closes a beach, so check conditions before you go.

Neither is a place to travel for food, but Sarasota has a little more range. Main Street and St Armands Circle have bistros, wine bars and more ambitious dining rooms, grouper and stone crab come from the Gulf, and the Amish and Mennonite kitchens of Pinecraft add hearty home cooking and pie.

Myrtle Beach eats in volume, with seafood buffets, pancake houses and chains along the strip. Its best meals are a short drive away, at the waterfront restaurants of Murrells Inlet and in the lightly fried Calabash style over the North Carolina line.

Sarasota is well ahead here, mostly thanks to the Ringling. It has a serious Baroque collection with its Rubens canvases, John Ringling's Venetian Gothic mansion Ca' d'Zan on the bay and the circus museum, which together easily fill a day. Mid-century buildings of the Sarasota School and the 1920s Burns Court district give architecture lovers more to seek out.

Myrtle Beach has little history of its own on show. Brookgreen Gardens, with sculpture among live oaks on a former rice plantation and exhibits on the people enslaved there, is the one essential visit. Atalaya next door rounds off a single day of sightseeing.

For a loud night out, Myrtle Beach wins comfortably. In summer the oceanfront blocks around the boardwalk fill with beach bars and rooftop decks, and the entertainment complexes keep themed bars and dance clubs going late. North Myrtle Beach still dances the shag in its old Main Street clubs. Spring break and rally weeks can be rowdy, and the whole scene goes quiet in the off-season.

Sarasota's evenings are gentler: wine and cocktail bars on Main Street, sunset drinks in Siesta Key Village, an older crowd and early nights. Anyone who wants clubs ends up driving to Tampa or St Petersburg.

Both sit on flat coastal land, but Sarasota gets more out of it. Myakka River State Park, about half an hour inland, has prairie, a treetop canopy walkway and alligators. The mangrove tunnels off Lido Key and the waters of Sarasota Bay make for easy paddling among dolphins and manatees, and the mild winters keep the outdoors open from November to April.

Myrtle Beach has good birdwatching on the marsh boardwalks of Huntington Beach State Park and kayaking through the cypress swamps of the Waccamaw River. Above all it has dozens of golf courses along the Grand Strand, which makes it the stronger base for golfers.

The two are evenly matched for day trips, and both need a car. From Myrtle Beach the prize is Charleston, about two hours south, which makes a long day of antebellum streets and harbour forts. Georgetown's old waterfront and rice-culture museum are much closer, and Wilmington and Southport lie to the north.

From Sarasota the drives are shorter and lead to larger places: the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg across the Sunshine Skyway, Ybor City in Tampa, the Greek sponge-diving town of Tarpon Springs, and the winter estates of Edison and Ford at Fort Myers. One offers a single outstanding historic city, the other a spread of museums and heritage towns.

Myrtle Beach is the more complete family resort. Besides the gentle surf it has a large aquarium, a seaside amusement park with an old wooden roller coaster, water parks, the observation wheel on the boardwalk and endless themed mini-golf, and the resort hotels have lazy rivers and suites with kitchens. Avoid spring break weeks and some stretches of the oceanfront late at night.

Sarasota suits young children who mainly want the sea. The water off Siesta Key and Lido Key is very calm, Mote Marine Laboratory has sharks and manatees, and the circus model at the Ringling goes down well. There is no theme park closer than Busch Gardens in Tampa, though, so it runs short of big days out sooner.

You will need a car in either place, but Sarasota is the easier of the two. The keys, museums and parks are short drives apart, and downtown, St Armands Circle and Siesta Key Village are each pleasant on foot. A free trolley runs along Siesta Key, though traffic on the bridges backs up in winter.

Myrtle Beach strings its attractions, outlet malls and golf courses along multi-lane highways with few pavements, and summer traffic on Kings Highway can crawl. Walking only really works within a resort area or along the beach itself.

Neither is a shopping destination, and the difference is one of style. Myrtle Beach is about bargains and bulk: two big outlet centres, entertainment complexes that mix chain shops with attractions, the Market Common and enormous beachwear stores. The local craft is the sweetgrass basket, sold on the coast road to the south.

Sarasota suits gentle browsing, among the resort wear, jewellery and galleries of St Armands Circle and the independent boutiques of Main Street and Palm Avenue, with a Saturday farmers' market downtown.

Myrtle Beach is much the cheaper place to spend a beach week. A huge stock of motels, hotels and condos keeps rooms affordable, especially outside the summer peak, and many units have kitchens, which cuts down on eating out. July and long weekends are the expensive exceptions.

Sarasota costs more almost across the board. The keys are dearest during the winter season, and restaurant bills come at full resort level. Summer and early autumn are cheaper, staying on the mainland helps, and the public beaches and state parks cost little.

For an evening of theatre or music, Sarasota is far ahead. Few cities of its size have their own opera, a ballet company known for Frederick Ashton's works, a full orchestral season and the Asolo Repertory Theatre, along with the purple Van Wezel hall for touring shows. Most of the programme runs from autumn to spring.

Myrtle Beach's stages are given over to polished family entertainment: country, gospel and pop revues, Christmas shows, dinner shows with knights or pirates, and touring country and rock acts. They make a fun night out, but there is nothing classical.

Sarasota is the better place to slow down. The whole town is unhurried, there are spas on Longboat Key and Lido Key and sunrise yoga on the sand, and Warm Mineral Springs, about forty minutes south, is a spring-fed pool that has drawn bathers for generations. Winter traffic on the keys is the main threat to the calm.

In Myrtle Beach, rest takes more planning. The resort spas are fine, but the strip is loud and car-bound in summer, so the peace is found around Pawleys Island and in spring and autumn.