Sarasota or St. Petersburg, Florida?

These two are evenly matched on the beach, with soft white sand and calm, shallow Gulf water at both. The difference is in the setting. Sarasota's Siesta Key has powder-fine quartz sand that stays cool underfoot, Lido Key is just over the causeway from downtown, and at Venice you can hunt for fossilised shark teeth.

St. Petersburg's downtown faces the bay, so you get to the Gulf by a short drive or the bus out to St. Pete Beach. In return you get more variety: the old village of Pass-a-Grille, the wilder sands of Fort De Soto, and Caladesi Island, which you can only reach by ferry. Red tide can affect either coast now and then.

St. Petersburg eats better. It has the same Gulf grouper and stone crab, but Central Avenue's Grand Central and Edge districts add a wider spread of modern kitchens. The many small breweries give the city a real craft beer scene, and Ybor City's Cuban cooking is a short trip away.

Sarasota's better restaurants cluster on Main Street and St Armands Circle and mostly cater to winter visitors. Its most distinctive meal is Amish cooking and pie in Pinecraft.

St. Petersburg has more to see. The Dalí Museum, the largest Dalí collection outside Spain, sits close to the Museum of Fine Arts, the Chihuly glass and a museum of the Arts and Crafts Movement, and murals cover walls across downtown.

Sarasota's culture centres on one site, the Ringling, with its Rubens canvases, the Ca' d'Zan mansion and the circus museum. Beyond that it rewards architecture fans with its mid-century Sarasota School houses. Neither city has an old quarter to wander.

Here the gap is wide. St. Petersburg's Central Avenue is a proper night out, with cocktail bars, rooftop terraces, sports bars and taprooms all on foot, livelier at weekends, and Ybor City's clubs are about 40 minutes away.

Sarasota means a glass of wine on Main Street or a sunset drink at a Siesta Key beach bar. The crowd is older and the town is quiet early. For a bigger night, people from Sarasota drive up to St. Petersburg.

Both are flat, watery and full of wildlife, so the difference is in kind. Sarasota has the bigger inland park in Myakka River, with prairie, a treetop canopy walk and alligators on the riverbanks, plus mangrove tunnels to kayak off Lido Key.

St. Petersburg is more about paddling and cycling. There are mangrove trails at Weedon Island and Shell Key, birding at Fort De Soto, and the long, paved Pinellas Trail for an easy ride.

From Sarasota, the best day out is St. Petersburg, about an hour north over the Sunshine Skyway bridge, for the Dalí Museum and the waterfront. To the south, the best trips are Venice, a planned town from the 1920s, and the winter estates of Edison and Ford at Fort Myers. Anna Maria Island is close by.

St. Petersburg is better placed, with more within easy reach. Tampa is just across the bay, with Ybor City's old cigar streets and the Moorish minarets of the old Tampa Bay Hotel. The Greek sponge docks at Tarpon Springs are about 45 minutes north, and Sarasota's Ringling is a good outing an hour south. Orlando's theme parks also fit into a long day, which from Sarasota they do not.

Both work well for a family beach vacation, thanks to the same gentle, shallow Gulf water. Sarasota is quieter and simpler. Mote Marine's aquarium, with its sharks and manatees, and the circus model at the Ringling are the highlights, and rentals with pools are easy to find.

St. Petersburg has more attractions within reach. There is a hands-on children's museum in town and the dolphin aquarium at Clearwater. Across the bay are Busch Gardens, ZooTampa and the Florida Aquarium, and Orlando is close enough for a split stay.

You will want a car in either city, but St. Petersburg is a little easier without one. Its compact downtown puts the pier, museums and Central Avenue within walking distance, and a rapid bus runs out to St. Pete Beach.

In Sarasota, the walkable patches are downtown, St Armands Circle and Siesta Key Village, linked mostly by road. A free trolley runs along Siesta Key, but in winter, traffic on the bridges to the keys can be slow.

Neither is a shopping destination, but the style differs. Sarasota's is resort browsing: jewellery, resort wear and art galleries around St Armands Circle, independent boutiques on Palm Avenue, and a large mall for chain brands.

St. Petersburg is more independent and offbeat, with vintage and record shops and local glass along Central Avenue, plus the downtown Saturday Morning Market in winter. For big brands, you drive to Tampa's malls.

Both are expensive American beach towns, and in both the winter season pushes beachfront rates highest. St. Petersburg is slightly easier on the budget, mainly because staying downtown rather than on the sand is a pleasant option, though beach parking adds to the bill.

Sarasota's keys, especially Siesta and Longboat, are pricey from January to April. Both cities are noticeably cheaper in the hot, stormy summer.

Sarasota is clearly the stronger choice for an evening at the theatre. It has its own opera in a restored 1920s theatre, a ballet company known for Ashton, a full orchestra season, the large Asolo Repertory Theatre on the Ringling grounds and the purple Van Wezel hall for touring shows.

St. Petersburg has the Mahaffey Theater, which shares the Florida Orchestra with the rest of the bay, and more live bands in bars and courtyards. For opera and ballet, though, you cross to Tampa.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, and both offer slow days and sunsets more than anything else. Sarasota has the one real spring: Warm Mineral Springs, about forty minutes south, where the water stays warm all year. It also has spas on Longboat and Lido Keys.

St. Petersburg's calm is found in the sleepy streets of Pass-a-Grille, the spas of its historic beach hotels and the shady waterfront parks downtown.