Myrtle Beach or Tampa?

In Myrtle Beach you sleep on the beach. It runs for about 100km of wide, pale sand with the hotels right on it, and Surfside and Garden City have calmer stretches backed by dunes. The water is greenish and too cold from November to April, but in summer you can walk out of your room and straight into it.

Tampa's beaches are finer, whiter and softer, and the Gulf is warmer. But they lie across the bay at Clearwater, St Pete Beach and Fort De Soto, so every beach day starts with a drive. Unless you stay on the islands, the sea is an outing rather than the backdrop to the whole stay.

Tampa has a cuisine of its own, born in Ybor City's cigar factories. Look for the Cuban sandwich with salami, deviled crab croquettes, café con leche, and the Columbia Restaurant's tiled Spanish dining room, run by the same family for more than a century. Grouper, stone crab and the food halls add enough for several days of interesting meals.

Myrtle Beach cooks for volume, with seafood buffets and pancake houses along the strip. The better plates are the boat-fresh shrimp and flounder at Murrells Inlet and Calabash-style fried seafood, worth a night or two but not much more.

Neither city is made for a culture trip, but Tampa has a real story to tell. Ybor City's brick cigar factories and Latin social clubs, Henry Plant's railway hotel with its silver minarets, and the art and history museums by the river fill two or three days. Art lovers can also cross the bay to St Petersburg.

Myrtle Beach shows little of its own past. Brookgreen Gardens, a sculpture garden on a former rice plantation that also tells the story of the people enslaved there, and the Moorish-style Atalaya next door make one good day, and that is about all.

Tampa gives you more choice at night. Seventh Avenue in Ybor City has the clubs and a young weekend crowd, SoHo has cocktail bars and patios, and the Riverwalk has taprooms that reflect the city's strong craft beer culture. Each winter, Gasparilla adds one huge street party on the bayfront.

Myrtle Beach offers less variety and depends on the season: beach bars, rooftop decks and dance clubs around the boardwalk in summer. The shag, the Carolina beach dance still danced in North Myrtle Beach's long-standing clubs, is a genuine local tradition. Out of season, much of the scene goes quiet early.

Both are flat coastal country where the outdoors means water and wildlife, but Tampa has the wider range. Myrtle Beach cannot match its winter manatees near Apollo Beach, the mangrove tunnels to paddle, or the clear, turquoise spring-fed rivers around Crystal River and Weeki Wachee.

Myrtle Beach answers with birdwatching from the marsh boardwalks of Huntington Beach State Park, kayaking among the cypress swamps of the Waccamaw River, and dozens of golf courses along the Grand Strand. In both places, summer heat pushes outdoor plans to the early morning.

The two are about even for days out, and both need a car. From Myrtle Beach the standout is Charleston, two hours south, one historic city that rewards a long day. Shorter options include the old port of Georgetown and Wilmington's riverfront.

Tampa's list is broader but shallower: the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, the Greek sponge docks at Tarpon Springs, the Ringling estate in Sarasota and the Frank Lloyd Wright buildings in Lakeland. In short, Tampa offers variety, while Myrtle Beach offers one deep historic day.

Both are made for children, and the difference is in kind. Myrtle Beach keeps everything close to the sand: gentle surf, resort hotels with lazy rivers, the observation wheel on the boardwalk, an old wooden roller coaster and endless themed mini-golf.

Tampa relies on bigger attractions: Busch Gardens with its coasters and animal park, the manatees at ZooTampa and the Florida Aquarium, with Legoland and Orlando within a long day's reach. In both, the summer heat makes spring and autumn easier with small children.

Plan on a car in either city. Myrtle Beach strings everything along about 100km of highway with few pavements. Within a single resort area, though, you can walk along the beach itself or get around by bicycle or golf cart.

Tampa gives a little more to a short stay in the centre. A heritage streetcar links downtown, the Channel District and Ybor City, and the Riverwalk is pleasant on foot. Beyond that, the beaches and Busch Gardens are a drive away, with slow bridge traffic at rush hour.

Myrtle Beach shops for bargains and Tampa for brands, though malls carry most of the trade in both. Myrtle Beach has two big outlet centres, huge beachwear shops on the highway and sweetgrass baskets sold along the coast road to the south.

Tampa has a luxury mall near the airport and the open-air boutiques of Hyde Park Village. It also has one living local craft in the cigars still rolled by hand in Ybor City.

Myrtle Beach is the easier place to stretch a budget. Its huge supply of motels and rental condos keeps rooms cheap outside July and long weekends, and kitchens in many units cut the cost of eating.

Tampa sits in the American middle. Its beach hotels are at their most expensive in winter and spring, and summer is the cheaper time. Cuban bakeries keep lunch affordable, but theme parks weigh heavily on a family budget, and in both cities a car adds to the cost.

For an evening in a proper theatre or concert hall, Tampa is the clear choice. The Straz Center stages touring Broadway musicals, opera, ballet and plays, the Florida Orchestra performs there, and the ornate 1926 Tampa Theatre is a memorable place for a film or a concert.

Myrtle Beach offers polished variety instead: country and gospel revues, Christmas shows, and dinner shows with knights or pirates. They are good fun with children, but there is no orchestra season or serious drama.

Rest in both places comes down to a hotel spa and choosing the quiet end, since there is no bathing tradition in either. In Myrtle Beach that means Pawleys Island to the south, or coming in spring or autumn when the strip slows down. Around Tampa it means sleeping on the Gulf islands rather than downtown, where days settle into long lunches and sunsets.