Panama City Beach or West Palm Beach?

On the beach alone, Panama City Beach is the better choice. About 43km of powder-white quartz sand starts right outside the condo, the Gulf water is shallow and green, and St. Andrews State Park and Shell Island are there when you want quieter sand. The catch is the season: from November to April the sea is too cool for most people, and in any month rip currents mean watching the flags.

West Palm Beach's beaches lie across the lagoon, a short drive or bike ride away at Midtown Beach, Singer Island or Juno, but the Gulf Stream keeps the Atlantic warm enough to swim all year. Peanut Island does the job of the St. Andrews lagoon, with sheltered water for children and snorkellers.

Neither is a place to explore a food culture, but you will eat better in West Palm Beach. Clematis Street and Rosemary Square have waterfront terraces and proper seafood rooms, stone crab claws are served in season, and Cuban and Haitian bakeries away from the centre add some character.

Panama City Beach means grouper sandwiches, shrimp baskets and bay oysters at dockside shacks, good in their casual way. Chains and themed restaurants make up much of Front Beach Road, though.

The difference here is large. West Palm Beach has the Norton Museum of Art, with American, European and Chinese collections, plus Flagler's marble mansion at Whitehall and the Mediterranean Revival streets of Palm Beach. That is enough for two or three full days.

Panama City Beach was built for the beach after the mid-twentieth century, and its one museum covers diving history. The older streets of St. Andrews across the bay make a pleasant hour, but anyone after history has to drive further.

Neither town is worth choosing for nights out, and they differ more in style than in depth. Panama City Beach drinks on decks over the sand, with frozen drinks at sunset and cover bands. The strip is loud during spring break in March and quiet by mid-evening in winter. West Palm Beach has a little more range, with cocktail bars, rooftop terraces and a couple of dance spots on Clematis Street at weekends, though anyone who wants proper clubs still goes to Miami.

Both are flat coasts where being outdoors mostly means paddling, fishing and diving. West Palm Beach has the edge underwater, with the shore dive under the Blue Heron Bridge and Gulf Stream reefs a short boat ride out. Inland, Loxahatchee gives a taste of the Everglades, with alligators and wading birds, and sea turtles nest on the beaches to the north.

Panama City Beach has tall white dunes at St. Andrews, the rare coastal dune lake by Camp Helen, dolphin trips on St. Andrew Bay and wreck diving on the artificial reefs offshore.

West Palm Beach has the stronger day trips because Miami is about an hour away by fast train, with South Beach, Little Havana and Wynwood. Closer in are Delray Beach's Japanese gardens and Boca Raton's pink Mizner architecture. From Panama City Beach every outing needs a car: the planned pastel towns along Scenic Highway 30A, the old oyster port of Apalachicola, or a longer drive to Pensacola's naval aviation museum. They are pleasant towns, but none of them gives you a day in a real city.

Both work well with children, and Panama City Beach is more purpose-built for them. You get a condo with a pool, shallow summer water, a large water park, a marine park with dolphin shows and mini-golf all along the strip, as long as you avoid March.

West Palm Beach suits families who like animals and learning more than rides. It has a drive-through safari park, a zoo, a science centre and the free manatee centre in winter, and its sea stays warm long after the Gulf has cooled.

West Palm Beach is easier without a car, though only up to a point. Downtown is compact and walkable, a free trolley links the waterfront and Clematis Street, and fast trains run south to Miami. Beyond the centre both are car country, but Panama City Beach is harder still. It is one long beach road with patchy pavements and a slow trolley-bus, so you drive for nearly everything, dinner included.

West Palm Beach is by far the better place to shop. On Worth Avenue the luxury and jewellery houses are set around tiled courtyards and vias, which make the street worth walking even if you buy nothing. Antique Row on South Dixie Highway is good for an afternoon of browsing.

Panama City Beach offers mainstream chains at the open-air centre by the city pier and souvenir warehouses with shark-mouth entrances along the strip. For anything more individual, drive to the boutiques in the 30A towns.

Panama City Beach is the cheaper stay. Condos with kitchens are the normal way to stay, and outside summer and spring break the rates drop sharply. Long winter stays are especially good value.

West Palm Beach is costly from December to April, when hotels on Palm Beach are among the most expensive on the coast, and rates only come down in summer. In both places a car is needed and meals cost what they do at any resort.

West Palm Beach has a real season, busiest from late autumn to spring. The Kravis Center brings touring Broadway shows, visiting orchestras, dance and the Palm Beach Opera, and Palm Beach Dramaworks stages serious plays on Clematis Street. In Panama City Beach, live performance means cover bands on beach decks, with a restored historic theatre across the bay in Panama City for the odd touring show.

Neither has a spa tradition, but West Palm Beach is the more comfortable place to unwind. It has large oceanfront resort spas, and Palm Beach is quiet, manicured and slow, with lagoon-side promenades for an early walk. Panama City Beach has a few resort and day spas, and its calm comes from the season: in autumn and winter the beach empties and sunset walks take over from the summer noise.