I've had hard wood and I've had tile. You can seal the grout to keep it from collecting too much dirt. The hard wood dings up when you drop things and the things still break. The hard wood is a bit warmer looking. You do have to worry about water with the hard wood. When you pick a tile, look at the boxes at the store - are there broken tiles in the box? If so they might be prone to breaking. Can you take a quarter drag it across a tile and make a scrape in the tile?