St. Petersburg, Florida or Virginia Beach?

St. Petersburg has the better beaches. The barrier islands give wide, fine white sand and calm, shallow Gulf water, and there is variety too, from sleepy Pass-a-Grille and the wilder shores of Fort De Soto to Caladesi Island, which you can only reach by ferry. The water stays warm for swimming from late spring to autumn.

Virginia Beach is a more classic Atlantic resort: one long strip of pale sand with a boardwalk and lifeguards, surfers by the fishing pier, and the quieter options of the bay beaches and Sandbridge's dunes. The ocean has more energy than the Gulf and the swimming season is much shorter. In St. Petersburg, on the other hand, the beach means a trip west from downtown.

Both cities eat mainly seafood, but St. Petersburg offers more around it. Alongside grouper sandwiches and stone crab claws, Central Avenue and the Grand Central and Edge districts have chef-led kitchens and brunch spots, and the many small breweries give evenings a real local flavour. The Cuban cooking of Ybor City is just across the bay.

Virginia Beach's best dishes are Lynnhaven oysters and Chesapeake blue crab, eaten at dockside places by the inlet rather than on the resort strip. The strip itself is mostly chains and seafood buffets, so anyone wanting variety usually drives to Norfolk.

This is where the two differ most. St. Petersburg has a real cluster of museums on its downtown waterfront: the largest Dalí collection outside Spain, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Chihuly glass and a museum of the Arts and Crafts Movement, with murals across the Central Arts District. That fills two or three good days.

Virginia Beach's sights take a morning. There is the cross at Cape Henry, where the 1607 colonists first landed, the old lighthouse, the Adam Thoroughgood House and the King Neptune statue. For deeper history, visitors leave town.

Neither is a clubbing destination, but St. Petersburg makes for the more pleasant evening. Cocktail bars, rooftops and brewery taprooms sit close together on Central Avenue, and the beaches start the night with sunsets over the Gulf. It also stays lively through the winter season.

Virginia Beach is louder and more seasonal: summer crowds of vacationers and sailors on Atlantic Avenue, a calmer lounge scene at Town Center, and an early-closing strip once the season ends. For a bigger night, St. Petersburg sends people to Ybor City and Virginia Beach sends them to Norfolk and Ghent.

Both are flat coastal places with good outdoor life, and they are broadly level. St. Petersburg's nature is about mangroves, best seen by kayak through Weedon Island and Shell Key, with rays, wading birds and manatees in winter, plus the long, paved Pinellas Trail for cycling.

Virginia Beach offers more varied land to walk through: maritime forest and cypress swamp in First Landing State Park, and the empty marsh and shore of Back Bay and False Cape. Surfing and summer dolphin-watching by kayak give it a more active edge on the water. St. Petersburg is at its best outdoors in winter, Virginia Beach from spring to autumn.

Virginia Beach has the stronger day trips, mainly thanks to the Historic Triangle about an hour away: Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and the Yorktown battlefield make one of the best history days in the country. Norfolk's battleship and waterfront, old Portsmouth and the Wright brothers' site at Kitty Hawk add more.

St. Petersburg has a few good outings, including Ybor City, the Ringling in Sarasota and the Greek sponge docks of Tarpon Springs, with Orlando at the limit of a day. After that the region turns into lookalike suburbs and beach towns.

Both work well for a family beach vacation, and the difference is mostly in season and style. St. Petersburg has shallow Gulf water and the children's museum, with Busch Gardens, the Florida Aquarium and ZooTampa across the bay and Orlando's theme parks close enough for a long day. The mild winter means it suits children for much of the year.

Virginia Beach puts more within walking distance of the hotels in summer: the boardwalk, the Virginia Aquarium, mini-golf and a water park. Colonial Williamsburg, where children can join in with costumed tradespeople, adds an outing that teaches as well as entertains. In both places, though, you will need a car.

Both are mostly car country, but St. Petersburg is a little easier without one. Its downtown is compact enough to walk, with a trolley loop around the centre, a rapid bus to St. Pete Beach and the Pinellas Trail for cycling. Many visitors could manage a few days with no car at all.

In Virginia Beach, going car-free works only along the Oceanfront, with the boardwalk and the summer trolley on Atlantic Avenue. Everything else is suburban sprawl with sparse buses, and summer traffic into the resort area can be heavy.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but St. Petersburg's shops are more interesting. Central Avenue and the Grand Central District have vintage and record shops, local boutiques and galleries selling glass and prints, and in winter there is the Saturday Morning Market.

Virginia Beach's shopping is suburban: a regional mall, chain stores at Town Center, and surf shops and T-shirt stores at the Oceanfront. For brand names, St. Petersburg relies on the malls in Tampa, while Virginia Beach already has them.

The two have opposite peak seasons. St. Petersburg is at its dearest from February to April, when northern visitors come for the winter sun, and cheapest in the hot, stormy summer. Virginia Beach is the other way round: oceanfront rooms and beach houses are expensive on summer weekends and fall sharply once the season ends.

Otherwise the costs are much alike, with American restaurant prices, tipping on top and a hire car to budget for. The beaches and parks are free or close to it in either place, and in St. Petersburg staying downtown rather than on the sand saves money, though the museums charge full admission.

St. Petersburg's evenings out happen mostly indoors, on the Mahaffey Theater's waterfront stage, which the Florida Orchestra shares with touring shows, and at a regional theatre company and a converted church used for intimate concerts. Opera and big Broadway tours mean a trip to Tampa's large centre.

Virginia Beach is more about summer entertainment in the open air: touring rock and country acts at its amphitheatre and free concerts on stages along the boardwalk. For opera, the symphony and the spring Virginia Arts Festival, people go to Norfolk, half an hour away.

St. Petersburg is the more restful choice. It has spas in historic beach hotels such as the Don CeSar, yoga studios downtown and the quiet streets of Pass-a-Grille. Sunset over the Gulf is an unhurried ritual every evening, and the mild, dry winter is the best time to slow down.

Virginia Beach offers spas in the oceanfront hotels and calm early mornings on the boardwalk, but its peaceful season is the shoulder months of spring and autumn. In high summer it is crowded and loud.