Orlando or Tampa?

Tampa is the better base for beach days by a wide margin. Clearwater Beach, Pass-a-Grille and the quiet islands of Caladesi and Fort De Soto are under an hour across the bay, with fine white sand and shallow, gentle water. A beach afternoon fits easily around other plans.

From Orlando, the nearest sea is Cocoa Beach or New Smyrna on the Atlantic, about an hour east, and those same Gulf beaches are close to two hours away. Most Orlando visitors swim in hotel pools and water parks, and the coast is one day out in a week.

Tampa has a cuisine with roots. The Cuban, Spanish and Sicilian cigar workers of Ybor City left behind pressed Cuban sandwiches with salami, deviled crab croquettes, old bakeries and a century-old tiled Spanish dining room, and grouper and stone crab from the bay round it out.

Orlando eats better than its reputation once you leave the parks, especially at the Vietnamese kitchens of Mills 50 and the chef-led places in Winter Park. Still, most visitors eat at chains and themed restaurants, with Epcot's World Showcase as the highlight.

Neither city is a museum destination, but Tampa has a past you can walk through. Ybor City's brick cigar factories, ironwork balconies and Latin social clubs, together with the Moorish-looking minarets of Henry Plant's 1891 hotel, fill two or three days well.

Orlando grew out of citrus groves and theme parks and has little historic fabric. Its standout is the Morse Museum in Winter Park, with the world's largest collection of Tiffany glass and his chapel from the 1893 World's Fair. That is a fine morning, but not a trip.

Tampa gives the better night out, with clear zones for different moods. Seventh Avenue in Ybor is loud and runs late, SoHo has polished cocktail bars and patios, and the Riverwalk has rooftops and craft-beer taprooms. Every winter the Gasparilla pirate festival turns the bayfront into a huge street party.

Orlando's evenings are mostly spent at Disney Springs and CityWalk, which are safe, themed and wind down early. The later scene on Orange Avenue and in Ivanhoe Village is driven by the university crowd and is a long drive from the park hotels.

Both sit in flat, watery country, but Tampa has more within easy reach. There are mangrove tunnels and dolphin cruises in the bay, cypress swamps on the Hillsborough River and winter manatees near Apollo Beach, and the turquoise springs of Crystal River and Weeki Wachee lie to the north.

Orlando has Wekiwa Springs, Blue Spring's manatees and airboat rides past alligators on the Kissimmee headwaters. Its finest birdwatching, at Merritt Island and Canaveral National Seashore, is an hour away on the coast.

Both are good bases for driving out, and the difference is in what you drive to. From Orlando, the Kennedy Space Center, with its Saturn V and the shuttle Atlantis, is a full day out, and St Augustine's Spanish fort and old streets bring a real sense of age, about two hours north.

From Tampa, the trips are shorter and more varied: the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, the Greek sponge docks at Tarpon Springs, the Ringling estate in Sarasota and Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings in Lakeland. None of them has that historic depth, and each city lists the other as a day trip.

Orlando is in a league of its own for children. Four Disney parks, two Disney water parks, Universal's film worlds, SeaWorld and Legoland come with character breakfasts, stroller rental and suites with bunk beds. The scale and the queues need planning and a few rest days by the pool.

Tampa is a very good family city on a smaller scale. Busch Gardens mixes roller coasters with animals, ZooTampa and the Florida Aquarium fill afternoons, and the calm, shallow Gulf beaches suit small children better than any pool.

You will want a car in both, but Tampa's centre at least works on foot. The streetcar links downtown, the Channel District and Ybor City, and the Riverwalk makes a pleasant walk. A short stay in the core is possible without driving, even though the beaches and Busch Gardens are not.

Orlando is a spread of highways, with the parks, hotel zones and downtown many miles apart along Interstate 4. The exception is a family staying on-site at Disney or Universal, where monorails, boats and gondolas make a car unnecessary.

Orlando is the stronger shopping trip, and some international visitors come mainly for it. The two premium outlet centres on International Drive and Vineland Avenue, the luxury labels at the Mall at Millenia and the brand stores at Disney Springs are all about American brands at good prices.

Tampa offers one upscale mall and the small boutique streets of Hyde Park Village. Its one distinctive purchase is a cigar rolled by hand in an Ybor City shop.

Both are expensive by world standards, but the money goes in different places. In Orlando, plenty of fairly priced rooms and condos in Kissimmee and on International Drive are offset by multi-day park tickets, express passes, parking and meals inside the parks.

In Tampa, a family that skips the theme parks spends mostly on the rental car and on beach hotels, which cost more in winter and spring. Summer is noticeably cheaper, and the Cuban bakeries make lunch an easy saving.

Tampa has the fuller programme. The Straz Center brings together touring musicals, a resident opera company, ballet and the Florida Orchestra, the ornate 1926 Tampa Theatre hosts concerts under its starry ceiling, and Ybor's small venues cover rock and indie.

Orlando's Dr. Phillips Center and Orlando Shakespeare Theater are solid, and the spring Fringe festival is long-established. Most visitors, though, see their shows inside the resorts: stage spectaculars, an acrobatic show at Disney Springs and fireworks.

Neither is a place to choose for rest, and the calm comes from different sources. In Orlando it is the resort spas and lazy rivers around Lake Buena Vista, used to recover between park days, or the lakes and tree-lined streets of Winter Park.

In Tampa, the quiet lies across the bay on the barrier islands, where days slow down to long lunches and Gulf sunsets. Downtown is too sprawling and humid to feel restorative.