Sharm el-Sheikh or Tel Aviv?

Both offer excellent sea swimming, but of very different kinds. Sharm's coast is a reef. The water is clear and calm, the coral begins a few steps out, and wooden jetties carry you over the reef flat to the drop-off, so you spend more time snorkelling than lying on the sand. Most beaches belong to hotels, many are small, and you will want reef shoes.

Tel Aviv has one long public strip of fine pale sand along the whole city, a walk from almost any central hotel, with lifeguards and breakwaters. It is a social beach where locals play paddle-ball and swim at sunset, but it gets crowded at weekends and has nothing underwater to look at. Sharm's sea also stays warm through the winter, while Tel Aviv's swimming season runs from May to November.

Food is one of the main reasons to choose Tel Aviv, and one of Sharm's weaker points. In Sharm most meals come from the hotel buffet, Naama Bay's restaurants are aimed at tourists, and the best eating is grilled fish, koshari and taameya in the Old Market.

Tel Aviv brings together Levantine street food, dishes from a dozen immigrant traditions and a confident chef-led restaurant scene. You can graze through Carmel and Levinsky markets, eat fish by Jaffa port and go to a café on every residential street. Israeli wine and craft beer are easy to find too, while in Sharm alcohol is mostly limited to the hotels.

Sharm el-Sheikh is a modern resort, and in town its culture amounts to the Al Sahaba Mosque and the painted Coptic Heavenly Cathedral. To see Egypt's great monuments you have to travel a long way.

Tel Aviv has enough to fill several days. The UNESCO-listed White City of Bauhaus buildings is best seen on foot along Rothschild Boulevard, and you can wander Jaffa's old stone quarter and the low houses of Neve Tzedek. The Tel Aviv Museum of Art and ANU, the Museum of the Jewish People, are worth an afternoon each. It is a modest list for a city of its size, but there is no real contest with Sharm.

Sharm's nights centre on the Naama Bay promenade, with its bars, shisha lounges and a few big clubs. It is fun for a few nights at the peak of the season but quiet outside it, and many guests never get past the hotel lobby bar.

Going out is part of Tel Aviv's identity. Cocktail and wine bars around Rothschild, Lilienblum and Allenby are packed past midnight, Thursday is the big night, and house and techno clubs in the south of the city keep going until dawn. It also has one of the most open gay scenes in the region.

Sharm wins here, mostly because of what lies underwater. Ras Mohammed National Park, about 30km south, has sheer reef walls and huge shoals of fish, and the reefs of the Tiran Strait and Nabq are close by boat. On land there are granite mountains and desert for jeep and camel trips, and the long excursion up Mount Sinai.

Tel Aviv's outdoor life happens along its flat seafront and in Yarkon Park, with cycling, surfing and paddleboarding. For real landscape you need to drive out to the Carmel ridge or the Judean Desert.

From Sharm the choice is short: a relaxed day in Dahab, or the trip to St Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai, about three hours each way. Trips to Cairo or Luxor mean long days spent mostly in transit.

Tel Aviv is one of the best bases in the region for excursions. Jerusalem's Old City is about half an hour away by fast train. Up the coast are Roman Caesarea, the Baha'i Gardens in Haifa and Crusader Acre, and Masada and the Dead Sea make a manageable day out. The only snag is Shabbat, when public transport stops and you need a car or a tour.

Both work for children, though Tel Aviv has a slight edge, and the two kinds of trip are quite different. In Sharm everything happens at the resort: kids' clubs, water slides, family pools and shallow lagoons for a first go at snorkelling. That means the hotel you pick matters more than the town.

Tel Aviv gives children a whole city. Restaurants welcome them late into the evening, the lifeguarded beaches are easy, and there is Luna Park, the Ramat Gan Safari and the children's museum in Holon for a change of scene. In both places midsummer heat is the main problem for small children.

Sharm runs for about 30km along the coast, and only Naama Bay is pleasant on foot. Getting anywhere means a hotel shuttle, a taxi with the fare agreed in advance, or a tour pick-up.

Central Tel Aviv is flat and compact. You can walk or cycle from the old port through the White City to Jaffa along the seafront path, and the light rail, buses and fast trains cover the rest. Things get harder only on Shabbat, when most public transport stops.

In Sharm, shopping means haggling over spices, perfume oils, alabaster and galabiyas in the Old Market and along Naama Bay, with a few malls for beachwear. Tel Aviv has a real local design scene. Israeli fashion and ceramics fill the boutiques on Dizengoff, Sheinkin and in Neve Tzedek, handmade work lines the Nahalat Binyamin crafts market on fair days, and Jaffa's flea market is good for antiques and vintage finds.

This is Sharm's biggest advantage. All-inclusive hotels are cheap by European standards, so guests who stay in the resort and go out little get very good value. Diving, excursions and imported drinks are where the extra costs come in.

Tel Aviv is among the most expensive cities around the Mediterranean, with hotels, sit-down meals and cocktails all priced like Western Europe's dearest capitals. The savings come from falafel and sabich stands and from the free beach and promenade.

In Sharm, performance means hotel entertainment teams, belly dancers and tanoura shows over dinner. Tel Aviv offers a proper cultural season. The Israel Philharmonic, the Israeli Opera and the national theatre Habima are all based in the city, and contemporary dance at the Suzanne Dellal Centre and by the Batsheva company is especially strong. On top of that there are jazz and indie clubs, and outdoor concerts in summer.

Sharm is the easier place to slow down. Almost every large resort has a spa with a hammam-style Oriental bath and well-priced massage, and the days settle into long, unhurried hours by the pool and the sea.

Tel Aviv is loud and fast during the week. Its calm moments come from a quiet Shabbat or a slow morning on the promenade, and its spas are mostly in the seafront hotels. For serious restorative bathing, people from Tel Aviv drive to the mud and mineral pools on the Dead Sea shore.