Atlanta or Bethany Beach?

The coastal town wins this one by a long way. Atlanta sits on the Piedmont plateau, hours from either coast, so swimming there means Lake Lanier or Lake Allatoona on a summer weekend, or the hotel pool.

Bethany Beach has a broad beach of pale sand along the whole town, lifeguards in season and moderate surf. The wild dunes of Delaware Seashore State Park are nearby, and the calm Inland Bays suit small children. The limit is the season, because the Atlantic is only really warm enough for swimming from July into September.

Atlanta is much the better place to eat. Soul food kitchens, meat-and-three cafeterias and a serious Sunday brunch cover the Southern side. The Korean, Vietnamese and Ethiopian kitchens along Buford Highway add real range, although much of it needs a car.

Bethany Beach eats like a summer resort: blue crabs cracked at picnic tables, fried clams and boardwalk ice cream, often from places that close out of season. It is good fun for a week, and the bigger restaurant scene in Rehoboth Beach is close, but this is not a trip for food.

Atlanta has the heritage, even though little of its old townscape survived the fire of 1864. The Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights make it a key city for the civil rights story. The High Museum and the Atlanta History Center add two or three solid days.

Bethany Beach has almost nothing of this kind beyond its carved totem pole, a small local history collection and the wartime watchtowers along the shore. Anyone staying there who wants museums has to drive to Lewes or further.

Atlanta's nights are in another league. Its big clubs play the hip-hop and trap the city exports, Edgewood Avenue has dive bars, Midtown has one of the South's largest LGBTQ scenes and Buckhead has bottle-service clubs. Each area is a separate pocket, so plan on rides between them.

Bethany Beach chooses to go to bed early, and an evening there is a walk on the boardwalk and not much else. For a late night, people drive to the beach bars of Dewey Beach or Ocean City.

Atlanta has the edge for outdoor variety. In town there are the tall hardwood trees, Piedmont Park and the BeltLine trail. Stone Mountain's granite dome and the Chattahoochee River are close, and about two hours north are the Blue Ridge foothills, Amicalola Falls and the southern end of the Appalachian Trail.

Bethany Beach is flat and watery, with dunes, salt marsh and shallow bays for kayaking, crabbing and watching ospreys and herons. The best outing is to see Assateague Island's wild ponies, but there are no hills to climb.

Atlanta has a slightly better list. Chattanooga's riverfront and Lookout Mountain, the college town of Athens and the antebellum houses of Madison give it more range. Savannah, the best-known of all, is too far for a day.

From Bethany Beach the outings are small and coastal: historic Lewes, the Victorian main street of Berlin, Cape May across the bay by ferry and the island village of Chincoteague. Both need a car, and neither has a major heritage site within an easy day.

Both work well with children, in very different ways. Atlanta is the place for big attractions: the Georgia Aquarium's whale sharks, Zoo Atlanta's gorillas, Fernbank's dinosaurs, the Center for Puppetry Arts and the roller coasters of Six Flags. The cost is driving, traffic and summer heat.

Bethany Beach offers a simpler family week, with a guarded beach, a safe small town, bike rides, crabbing off the docks and free evenings at the bandstand. It has no zoo or theme park, and much of it closes once summer ends.

Neither is easy without a car, but in different ways. In Atlanta, MARTA rail links the airport, downtown, Midtown and Buckhead, while the restaurants, Stone Mountain and everything further out are spread along congested motorways.

Bethany Beach is the opposite in scale. The flat little town is easy on foot or by bike, and many visitors leave the car parked all week. Getting there, and any outing beyond the seasonal coast bus, still means driving, with heavy traffic on summer weekends.

Big-city malls against a cluster of outlets up the highway is the real contrast here, and Atlanta comes out ahead. The two large malls facing each other on Peachtree Road and the designer boutiques of Buckhead Village carry the department stores and luxury labels, while Little Five Points supplies vintage clothes and record shops. It is familiar American retail, not a reason to come, but the choice is far wider.

In Bethany Beach the town's own shopping is a short row of surf shops, gift stores and bookshops full of beach reading. For serious buying, visitors drive about 25 minutes north to the outlet malls outside Rehoboth Beach, where Delaware's tax-free rules make a difference.

Atlanta is easier on a budget. Hotel rooms away from Buckhead cost much less than on the coasts, Buford Highway and casual Southern cooking are fair value, and the King park sites are free. Tips, tax, car hire and tickets for the big attractions still add up.

Bethany Beach is expensive in July and August, with weekly rentals near the ocean and resort prices for meals. Going in June or September, self-catering and paying no sales tax bring the cost down a good deal.

Atlanta has a full arts calendar. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Alliance Theatre are at the Woodruff Arts Center, the opera and ballet run full seasons, and touring Broadway shows play the Fox Theatre. Major hip-hop, R&B and gospel tours also come through.

Live music in Bethany Beach means the summer bandstand by the boardwalk, where cover bands and brass groups play free to families on blankets. For anything more, the nearest option is a small community theatre in Rehoboth Beach.

Neither city is a place people go for treatments, so they come out about level, but the rest they offer is quite different. In Atlanta you have to go looking for it. That usually means a day at one of the big Korean bathhouses out along the northeastern motorways, moving between hot pools and saunas and dozing in the lounge, or a massage at a hotel spa in Buckhead or Midtown. Once you are back in the car, the traffic and the summer humidity soon undo the effect.

Bethany Beach works the other way round. There is hardly anything to book, but the whole town moves slowly, with shaded streets, a quiet boardwalk after dark and almost nobody about in spring and autumn. It suits a stack of books and unhurried walks along the shore far better than a spa day.