West Palm Beach or Miami?

Miami has the stronger beach because of its scale. One continuous strip of pale sand runs the length of Miami Beach, from Art Deco South Beach to family-friendly Surfside, and the shallow, calm water at Crandon Park on Key Biscayne adds a second option. You can be in the water within minutes of most hotels.

West Palm Beach's sand is just as soft and its water just as warm, but downtown faces the lagoon, so the ocean means a short trip across a bridge to Palm Beach, Singer Island or Juno. Its special asset is Peanut Island, with sheltered lagoon swimming that Miami's open shore cannot match.

The food is where the gap is clearest. Miami has an actual cuisine to explore, with Cuban cafecito and lechon in Little Havana, Haitian griot in Little Haiti, and arepas and ceviche spread across the city, plus a serious chef-led tier in Brickell and the Design District.

West Palm Beach eats well but conventionally: grilled grouper and snapper on Clematis Street terraces, clubby lunch rooms on Palm Beach and a winter green market. The Caribbean bakeries are there, but they sit on the edges rather than at the centre of a meal out.

Miami has more to see, and it is more distinctive. The Art Deco Historic District is a whole townscape you can walk through, and Vizcaya, the Pérez Art Museum, the Wolfsonian and the Wynwood murals give you several days of varied sightseeing.

West Palm Beach has fewer sights, but they are good ones. The Norton Museum holds a stronger collection than its size would suggest, and Flagler's Whitehall tells the story of the railway that built this coast. Add an afternoon among Palm Beach's Mediterranean Revival villas and you have done most of it.

These two are not in the same league after dark. Miami offers big-room clubs with international DJs, downtown venues open until dawn, Wynwood breweries and warehouse parties, and Latin dance nights on Calle Ocho, enough for a whole trip built around going out.

In West Palm Beach a night out means a few blocks of Clematis Street and Rosemary Square: cocktail bars, sports bars and a rooftop or two, busy at weekends and quiet midweek. Locals who want to go clubbing drive to Miami.

Miami has a small lead, mostly because the Everglades lie on its doorstep. The Anhinga Trail, airboats and the Shark Valley cycle loop are all within an hour, and Biscayne National Park adds kayaking through mangroves.

West Palm Beach's outdoors centres on the sea. The Blue Heron Bridge shore dive, with its seahorses and octopus, is famous in its own right, Gulf Stream reefs lie a short boat ride offshore, and the Juno beaches are sea turtle nesting grounds. Its wetlands at Grassy Waters and Loxahatchee are a gentler version of the Everglades.

West Palm Beach is the better base for days out, partly because Miami itself is one of them, about an hour south by fast train. Delray Beach's Morikami gardens, Boca Raton's pink Mizner buildings and Jupiter's red lighthouse are all close, and none of them needs a long drive.

From Miami, the options are thinner. Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale are pleasant, and the Upper Keys make a good seafood day, but Key West is too far for a comfortable return, and most visitors spend their spare days in the Everglades instead.

Families do about equally well in both, and both need a car and a plan to cope with summer heat. Miami has more to offer, with Zoo Miami, the Frost Science Museum's aquarium and the Venetian Pool, but outings involve long drives and you have to steer around South Beach's party scene.

West Palm Beach is the easier place to be. Lion Country Safari and the winter manatees are standout outings, Peanut Island's lagoon is ideal for small swimmers, and the town is relaxed enough that parents rarely need to work around it.

You'll want a car or ride-hailing in either city, and neither is easy without one. Miami has more rail, with the Metrorail from the airport and the free elevated Metromover between downtown and Brickell, but none of it reaches the beach, and the traffic is heavier.

West Palm Beach is smaller and simpler. A free trolley loops through a compact downtown, Palm Beach is a short bike ride over the bridges, and the station puts Miami and Fort Lauderdale within easy reach by train.

Miami has the wider range. Flagship fashion houses in the Design District, Bal Harbour's exclusive open-air mall, the vast Aventura Mall and outlets on the western edge cover everything from couture to bargains, and Little Havana adds guayaberas and cigars.

West Palm Beach has one great street rather than a whole circuit. Worth Avenue's tiled vias are a pleasure to walk even if you buy nothing, the island's consignment shops sell designer cast-offs, and Antique Row on Dixie Highway offers something Miami doesn't: an afternoon of browsing for furniture and decorative pieces.

Both are expensive, especially in winter, when hotels, tipping and the need for a car push up the cost of a stay. The two places charge in different ways. Miami's sting comes from resort fees, parking and South Beach club drinks, and its Cuban lunch counters and the free Metromover make it easy to eat and move around cheaply.

West Palm Beach's costs come mainly from rooms. Palm Beach hotels are among the dearest on the coast, and the car is harder to do without. Summer brings lower rates in both cities, in exchange for heat and storms.

Miami has more on stage and more that belongs to the city. The Arsht Center hosts Florida Grand Opera and Miami City Ballet, the New World Symphony plays in its Gehry hall with screenings on the lawn outside, and Little Havana's salsa and timba bands give the city a sound of its own.

West Palm Beach relies on the Kravis Center for touring musicals, orchestras and the Palm Beach Opera. Its own contribution is Palm Beach Dramaworks, whose serious plays are a real draw for theatregoers. The calendar is busiest in winter, as it is in Miami.

In both cities the resort spas do most of the work, and neither is a place to travel to for treatments alone. Miami's one difference in kind is an old bath house in Miami Beach, where you can sit in Russian-style heat and then drop into cold water. It is the closest either city comes to a bathing ritual. Miami's mornings also have a public side, with groups doing yoga on the sand as the sun comes up.

West Palm Beach has nothing like either, and relaxing there is quieter and more private. In place of a single bath house, it has many small day spas and massage rooms that serve the area's well-off residents. That makes it easy to book a treatment without staying at a resort.