Tampa or St. Petersburg, Florida?

St. Petersburg has the barrier islands as its own seafront. St. Pete Beach and Pass-a-Grille are a short drive or a rapid bus ride from downtown, and many visitors stay right on the sand. Tampa uses the very same beaches, but they lie across the bridges, 35 minutes to an hour away, and at home it has only seawall and small bay beaches.

The fine white sand and the warm, gentle Gulf are the same for both. The difference is whether the beach is part of every day or a planned outing. Fort De Soto, at the mouth of the bay, is also closer from the St. Petersburg side.

The two eat about equally well, but in different ways. Tampa has a cuisine with roots: the Cuban sandwich made with Genoa salami, deviled crab croquettes, and café con leche in the old Ybor City bakeries and Spanish dining rooms.

In St. Petersburg the setting matters more. There are fish shacks in Pass-a-Grille, grouper sandwiches by the water, and brunch spots and chef-led kitchens along Central Avenue, and its craft breweries are its real strength. The cities are half an hour apart, so a stay in either can easily include meals in the other.

St. Petersburg is the stronger choice for art. The Dalí Museum holds the largest collection of his work outside Spain, and the same walkable waterfront has the Museum of Fine Arts, the Chihuly glass and the Arts and Crafts museum, with murals across downtown.

Tampa's sights are about local history: the cigar factories and Latin social clubs of Ybor City, and the 1891 railway hotel with silver minarets that houses the Plant Museum. They deserve two or three days, but none is of international rank, and visitors who come for art usually cross the bay to St. Petersburg.

Tampa has the bigger night out. Seventh Avenue in Ybor City has dance clubs and a young weekend crowd that stays out late, and SoHo has cocktail bars with patios. Each winter the Gasparilla pirate invasion turns the bayfront into a huge street party.

St. Petersburg keeps things relaxed. Its bars, rooftops and taprooms on Central Avenue are within walking distance of each other, and the beach tiki bars fill up at sunset. People in St. Petersburg who want to dance usually end up in Ybor anyway.

Both sit in the same flat, watery landscape, and neither has hills to climb. St. Petersburg's outdoors is coastal: paddling through the mangroves of Weedon Island and Shell Key, birding at Fort De Soto and cycling the long Pinellas Trail.

Tampa looks inland. You can kayak through cypress swamp on the Hillsborough River, reach the clear spring-fed rivers around Crystal River and Weeki Wachee more easily, and see manatees near Apollo Beach in winter.

The two share most of the same outings, from Sarasota's Ringling estate to the Greek sponge docks of Tarpon Springs, and each is the other's obvious first day out. The differences are at the edges: St. Petersburg is closer to the old beach villages of Anna Maria Island, while Tampa is better placed for the Frank Lloyd Wright campus at Lakeland and Bok Tower Gardens inland.

Tampa is the better family base because the big attractions are in town. It has Busch Gardens and its water park, ZooTampa, the Florida Aquarium, the Glazer Children's Museum and splash pads along the Riverwalk, and Legoland is within a day.

St. Petersburg is stronger at the beach, with calm, shallow water close to family resorts and condos, and Great Explorations is good for a rainy hour. Most of the bigger days out, though, mean crossing to Tampa or driving north to the Clearwater aquarium.

Neither works well without a car, but St. Petersburg is the easier of the two. Its downtown of museums, pier and Central Avenue is compact enough to walk, a trolley loops the centre, and a rapid bus runs out to St. Pete Beach.

Tampa's streetcar links downtown, the Channel District and Ybor City. The beaches, Busch Gardens and South Tampa all need a car, though, and rush-hour traffic on the bridges and interstates makes every journey longer.

Neither is a shopping destination, and they differ in style rather than range. St. Petersburg's shops are small and independent: vintage and record shops in the Grand Central District, glass and prints by local artists, and a Saturday market in the winter season.

Tampa has the brand names, in the large upscale mall near the airport and the boutiques of Hyde Park Village. It also has the one local craft worth taking home: a cigar rolled by hand in Ybor City.

Both cost what a US city does, which is more than many visitors from abroad expect, and both are cheaper in the hot summer months. In Tampa, the Cuban bakeries and sandwich counters keep lunch cheap, but theme park tickets can make a family stay expensive.

In St. Petersburg the biggest extra cost is a beachfront hotel in late winter, and staying downtown or inland helps. In both cities the beaches, parks and waterfront are free, and a hire car is close to essential.

Both offer a reliable evening out rather than a reason to travel, and the Florida Orchestra plays in each. Tampa has the bigger stages: the Straz Center for opera, ballet and touring Broadway shows, the ornate 1926 Tampa Theatre, and arena concerts downtown.

St. Petersburg's venues are smaller and more intimate. There is the Mahaffey Theater on the waterfront, a regional theatre company, a former church used as a concert hall, and an open-air courtyard for bands.

St. Petersburg is the more restful place to stay. The Gulf islands are a short ride west of downtown and easy to stay on, and watching the sunset there is a nightly habit. Pass-a-Grille's streets stay sleepy, the downtown waterfront parks are easy places to sit, and there are day spas and yoga studios in town.

Tampa itself is sprawling, humid and built around the car. Beyond its hotel spas, its quiet lies on those same islands, but from Tampa they mean a drive across the bay, so visitors who want rest tend to book there instead.