St Croix or Sint Maarten?

Both are excellent beach islands with warm, clear water all year, but the beaches feel different. St Croix's best sand is long and quiet, at Sandy Point and Rainbow Beach on the west end, where you watch the sunset from the water. Cane Bay lets you snorkel straight from the shore. There are fewer beaches overall, and Sandy Point closes for part of the year while turtles nest.

Sint Maarten has more choice, because the open border puts both halves of the island within easy reach: Mullet Bay and Cupecoy on the Dutch side, then Orient Bay, Pinel Island and Baie Rouge on the French side. It is also busier. Maho has the famous low-flying jets, and cruise days fill Great Bay, so quiet sand here means an early start.

Sint Maarten eats better, mostly thanks to its French half. Grand Case packs French and Creole restaurants and smoky lolo barbecue stalls into one seafront village, and Marigot's bakeries cover breakfast. That gives the island more range than the Dutch-side strip of grills and steakhouses alone would suggest.

St Croix's strength is its own Crucian cooking: johnny cakes, pates, kallaloo and roti from roadside stands. The rum distilleries near Frederiksted are worth a visit. Beyond that, Christiansted's restaurants are a smaller, more American-leaning group, and on both islands imported ingredients push up the bill.

This is St Croix's clearest advantage. Christiansted's ochre waterfront, the Steeple Building and Fort Christiansvaern are protected as a national historic site. Frederiksted's red fort, ruined sugar mills on the hills and the Whim estate tell the story of slavery and emancipation. It is a compact set of sights, but a meaningful one.

Sint Maarten has the 1793 Courthouse and a small museum on Front Street, plus the ruins of Fort Amsterdam and Fort Louis with their harbour views. That is a morning's sightseeing, and few visitors come for it.

Sint Maarten is where you go out. Around Simpson Bay and Maho, the night runs from sunset beach bars to late casinos and a handful of clubs open into the small hours, especially at weekends in winter. Grand Case and Orient Bay offer a gentler French-side evening.

St Croix winds down early. A night out is rum drinks in Christiansted's open-air courtyard bars or a sunset beach bar, and there are no clubs. The exception is the Crucian Christmas Festival, when the street parties run late.

St Croix has more to offer outdoors, and most of it is underwater. Buck Island Reef is a national monument with a marked snorkelling trail through elkhorn coral, divers can swim out to the Cane Bay wall from the beach, and Frederiksted's pier is a well-known night dive. Kayaking through bioluminescent water at Salt River and nesting leatherback turtles are things Sint Maarten cannot match.

Sint Maarten's outdoors is pleasant rather than special. You can hike Pic Paradis and Sentry Hill, snorkel at Creole Rock and Tintamarre, and kitesurf in Orient Bay on the steady trade winds.

For island-hopping, Sint Maarten wins easily. The French side alone makes a full day, and ferries reach Gustavia on St Barths in about an hour, Anguilla's quiet beaches from Marigot in half an hour, and the steep volcanic island of Saba a little further out.

St Croix sits about 60km south of the other Virgin Islands, so leaving the island is a big outing. St Thomas or St John's national park means a seaplane or a long boat crossing, which takes the whole day and adds real cost. Most visitors simply travel between Christiansted and Frederiksted.

Sint Maarten is a little easier with children. Resorts on the Dutch side have kids' clubs, Simpson Bay apartments make self-catering simple, and there are zip lines, a chairlift on Sentry Hill and treetop courses below Pic Paradis for when the beach palls. Distances are short, though traffic needs patience.

St Croix gives young children calm water at Rainbow Beach and a gentle first snorkel at Buck Island, and American families need no passport. It has nothing built for children, though, and every outing means a drive, so days revolve around the beach and the villa pool.

On both islands you will want a hire car, but the problems differ. St Croix is more spread out, about forty minutes' drive from one town to the other. You drive on the left, roads range from highway to potholed lanes, and buses are sparse, though Christiansted itself is easy to walk.

Sint Maarten's distances are short, but narrow roads clog around Simpson Bay, the causeway and Philipsburg, especially on cruise days. Cheap minibuses run without timetables, and crossing the open border to the French side is simple.

As a duty-free port, Sint Maarten is the place for a particular watch, camera or bottle. Front Street is lined with jewellers and electronics shops, and Marigot adds French perfume and fashion boutiques and a harbour market.

St Croix's shopping is small and local: the Crucian hook bracelet from Christiansted's jewellers, Caribbean art galleries, rum and hot sauce. Crucians wanting serious duty-free shopping go to St Thomas.

Neither island is cheap. Both ship in nearly everything, winter rates for beachfront stays are high, and car hire adds to the daily cost. St Croix is gentler than the other Virgin Islands, with small guesthouses in Christiansted and roadside food stands to keep spending down.

On Sint Maarten, apartments around Simpson Bay, supermarket self-catering, minibuses and the Grand Case lolos help most. Summer and autumn also bring lower rates there, as long as you accept the hurricane season.

The two islands save their music for different seasons. St Croix's comes out at the Crucian Christmas Festival around the turn of the year, with quelbe scratch bands and stilt-walking mocko jumbies. Frederiksted keeps up its open-air jazz by the water, and a small arts centre hosts the occasional touring show.

Sint Maarten puts its energy into spring Carnival, one of the larger ones in the Caribbean, with calypso and soca contests, steel pan and jump-ups late into the night. Outside those weeks, live music on either island means a band in a beach bar. There is no theatre or concert season to plan around.

St Croix is quiet from end to end. Evenings finish early, and the West End and the villas on the east end hills make doing very little easy. There is a resort spa or a yoga class if you want one, though nothing in the way of thermal baths or retreats.

On Sint Maarten, calm depends on where you stay. Dawn Beach and the French side slow right down, while on the Dutch side cruise-day crowds and Simpson Bay traffic break into the peace. Its hotel spas offer the same resort-style pampering, with no deeper tradition behind them.