West Palm Beach or Wilmington?

West Palm Beach has the stronger beaches because the sea is warm enough for swimming all year. Midtown Beach and Phipps Ocean Park have soft sand and clear water, Singer Island and Juno are broad and quiet, and Peanut Island's lagoon gives calm swimming and snorkelling. Late-summer seaweed and storm surf are the main drawbacks.

Wilmington's three beach towns are good in their own ways: polished Wrightsville with its fishing pier, casual Carolina Beach with its boardwalk and quiet Kure. Swimming is only comfortable from late May to October, though, and rip currents and seasonal lifeguards ask for more care.

Neither is a place to come for the food, and they are closely matched. The difference is regional character. In West Palm Beach it means stone crab and grilled grouper, Cuban and Haitian bakeries away from the centre, and clubby dining rooms on Palm Beach.

Wilmington eats Southern: shrimp and grits, oyster bars on the river and eastern North Carolina's vinegar-sauced whole-hog barbecue. Its craft breweries at the north end of downtown have no real match in West Palm Beach.

Both cities have about two or three days of sightseeing, but of different kinds. West Palm Beach is about collections and grand houses: the Norton's painting and Chinese art, Flagler's marble Whitehall and the Mediterranean Revival villas of Palm Beach.

Wilmington's strength is its streets. Its large historic district of antebellum and Victorian houses, the Bellamy Mansion's account of the old port's enslaved labour and the Battleship North Carolina across the river tell a deeper Southern history than West Palm Beach's mostly modern downtown.

Neither has a deep scene, and both are quiet on weeknights. West Palm Beach's evenings are a little dressier, with cocktail bars, rooftop terraces and a couple of dance spots on Clematis Street and Rosemary Square, and Miami within reach for real clubbing.

Wilmington's Front Street is more casual and pub-like, filled out by university students. In summer the beach towns add laid-back bars by the sand, which West Palm Beach's early-closing island lacks.

Both are flat, watery places, equally rewarding but in different elements. West Palm Beach is best underwater: the shore dive beneath the Blue Heron Bridge, with seahorses and octopus, Gulf Stream reefs offshore, and Everglades boardwalks at Grassy Waters with alligators.

Wilmington is better above the surface. You can kayak to undeveloped Masonboro Island, surf off Wrightsville and walk pine savanna trails where the Venus flytrap grows wild.

West Palm Beach has the better day trips mainly because of Miami, an easy hour south by fast train, with South Beach, Little Havana and Wynwood. Fort Lauderdale's canals and Delray's Morikami gardens are closer still.

Wilmington's outings are smaller and all by car. The best is Southport and the ferry to car-free Bald Head Island, with Fort Fisher on the way. New Bern and Beaufort take a couple of hours each way.

Both are easy with children, and the real difference is the season. West Palm Beach works through the winter, with drive-through Lion Country Safari, the zoo and manatees gathering at Manatee Lagoon.

Wilmington is a summer beach-house vacation. It has old-fashioned rides on the Carolina Beach boardwalk, the aquarium at Fort Fisher and the decks of the battleship to climb. Rental homes near the sand suit larger families.

West Palm Beach is the easier of the two without a car, though only a little. A free trolley links the waterfront and Clematis Street, fast trains run to Fort Lauderdale and Miami, and you can cycle across the bridges to Palm Beach.

Wilmington has only its walkable historic district and riverwalk. The beaches are 15km or more away along suburban roads, and buses are of little use to visitors, so a hire car does nearly all the work.

This is where the two differ most. Worth Avenue gives West Palm Beach a real luxury shopping street, with jewellery houses and boutiques set around tiled courtyards and passages. Palm Beach's consignment shops and the dealers on Antique Row add bargains and browsing.

Wilmington has nothing on that scale. Its Front Street bookshops, galleries and antique dealers and the shops in the old Cotton Exchange make a pleasant hour, and the beach towns sell surf wear.

Wilmington is clearly the cheaper stay. Off-season rooms are reasonable, casual seafood is fair value, and costs only climb in summer, when beachfront rentals fill up.

West Palm Beach is expensive, and most so in its best weather, when Palm Beach hotel rates are among the highest on the coast. The two peak in opposite seasons: West Palm Beach is cheaper in the stormy summer, which is exactly when Wilmington is at its priciest.

West Palm Beach has the fuller programme. The Kravis Center brings touring Broadway, visiting orchestras and the Palm Beach Opera, and Palm Beach Dramaworks stages serious plays. Most of it runs from late autumn to spring.

Wilmington's scene is smaller and centres on Thalian Hall, its restored 19th-century opera house. It comes into its own in the warmer months, with outdoor stages by Greenfield Lake and long-standing jazz and blues festivals.

West Palm Beach is the better place to unwind. Large oceanfront resort spas on Palm Beach offer long, unhurried days, and the island's manicured quiet and lagoon promenades suit slow walks.

Wilmington offers day spas, yoga studios and calm waterfront evenings, and it is easy to switch off there outside summer weekends. There is nothing like a proper spa retreat, though.