Atlantic City or New York?

In Atlantic City you don't have to travel to reach the beach. The casino hotels back straight onto it, so you can go from the lobby to a towel on the sand in a few minutes, and it is free and has lifeguards. If you want somewhere calmer, it carries on south past the houses of Ventnor and Margate, and Brigantine across the inlet has a more local feel. The surf here brings rip currents, so swim between the flags.

In New York a beach day is a trip of its own. Coney Island and Brighton Beach are a long subway ride from Manhattan, the Rockaways draw surfers, and Jones Beach takes about an hour, and all of them are crowded on summer weekends. The water is the same Atlantic in both places and is warm only in high summer.

Atlantic City eats well enough without surprising anyone. You get casino steakhouses and buffets, Italian-American cooking in Ducktown, oversized subs, boardwalk pizza and crab shacks around Gardner's Basin, and saltwater taffy is its one real speciality.

New York is one of the great eating cities of the world. Whole cuisines are cooked by the communities they came from, from Fujianese in Flushing to Tibetan in Jackson Heights, alongside a deep fine-dining scene and cheap classics like pizza by the slice, bagels and deli pastrami. People travel to New York for the food, which they rarely do for Atlantic City.

Atlantic City's sights tell the story of the American seaside resort. There is the original Boardwalk of 1870, the street names used on the Monopoly board, the Art Deco Boardwalk Hall with its giant pipe organ, and Lucy the Elephant down in Margate. All of it fits into a day.

New York could fill weeks. The Met, MoMA, the Guggenheim and the Natural History Museum each deserve at least a morning, and landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, Grand Central and the Brooklyn Bridge are known everywhere. Walking SoHo's cast-iron streets or the Lower East Side tenements is a history lesson in itself.

Night-time in Atlantic City happens in the casinos. Gaming floors and lounges stay open around the clock, there are resort nightclubs and pool parties on summer weekends, and beach bars open in the warm months. The blocks between the resorts feel empty and uneasy after dark, and midweek or in winter the energy drops away.

New York's nightlife does not depend on the season or on any one building. You can choose dive bars and speakeasy-style cocktail bars in the East Village, wine bars in the West Village, skyline rooftops in Midtown, or warehouse clubs in Bushwick and Williamsburg that keep going past dawn. Every neighbourhood offers a different mood.

Neither city is a nature destination, but New York gives you more to do outdoors. Atlantic City's setting is flat barrier island and salt marsh. Its best spots are the Forsythe wildlife refuge for herons and shorebirds, kayaking on the back bays and canoeing in the Pine Barrens, and you need a car for most of them.

New York has big designed parks in Central Park and Prospect Park, waterfront walks along the High Line and the Hudson, and birdwatching at Jamaica Bay. For a real climb, Breakneck Ridge is about ninety minutes up the Hudson by train, and the autumn colour there is something Atlantic City's flat coast cannot offer.

Philadelphia is about an hour and a half from both cities, so the difference lies in what else is close. From Atlantic City, the best extra is Cape May's Victorian streets an hour south. There are also the boardwalk towns of Ocean City and Wildwood and the old ironworks village at Batsto, and you need a car for most of these.

New York has the longer list, and more of it can be reached by train. Options include Princeton, Yale's New Haven, the Gilded Age estates of the Hudson Valley, Dia Beacon and the sculpture fields at Storm King, which matters most if you have no car.

For children, Atlantic City is mostly about the sand. There is a beach with lifeguards, fairground rides on the Steel Pier, a small aquarium and Lucy the Elephant to climb. Casino floors are closed to under-21s, and many families end up staying in Ocean City, a short drive south.

New York has far more made for children: the dinosaurs and planetarium at the Natural History Museum, the Bronx Zoo, the aircraft carrier on the Hudson and Central Park's carousel and rowing boats. The downside is tiring logistics, with many stair-only subway stations and crowded Midtown, so staying near a park makes a big difference.

Atlantic City is easy as long as you stay on the island. You can walk the Boardwalk or ride the jitney buses along Pacific Avenue at any hour. Off the island, the wildlife refuge, Cape May and the shore towns really need a car, and the streets behind the Boardwalk are poor for walking.

In New York you never need a car. Manhattan's grid is easy to walk, the subway runs all night across four boroughs, and ferries and Citi Bikes fill the gaps. The subway map and weekend rerouting take some getting used to, but almost everything is within reach.

Shopping in Atlantic City means an outlet district of familiar American brands, gift arcades inside the casinos and souvenir stalls on the Boardwalk. A box of saltwater taffy is the local thing to take home.

New York is one of the world's great shopping cities. It has flagship stores on Fifth Avenue, luxury houses on Madison, the historic department stores, the big fashion brands in SoHo, independent boutiques in Nolita and vintage clothes and records in Williamsburg. For a shopping trip there is no contest.

Atlantic City is the cheaper of the two, but timing makes a big difference. Casino hotels cut room rates sharply midweek and out of season, and the beach and Boardwalk are free. Summer weekends, resort fees and parking push the bill up quickly.

New York is expensive all year. Hotel rooms are small and costly, tax and tips go on every bill, and the big attractions charge steep entry fees. Free parks, the Staten Island Ferry and staying in Brooklyn or Queens help, but it never becomes a budget destination.

Live entertainment in Atlantic City means touring acts. Pop and rock headliners, comedians and tribute shows play the casino arenas, Boardwalk Hall hosts big concerts and boxing, and summer brings free concerts on the beach. Most visitors plan a weekend around one show.

New York has more performance than anywhere. There is Broadway and Off-Broadway, the Metropolitan Opera, the Philharmonic and City Ballet at Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. Add jazz in Village basement clubs and in Harlem, plus gospel on Sundays, and you can see something first-rate every night of your stay.

Neither city is a place to unwind, but New York offers more for it. In Atlantic City the options are the spas in the casino hotels, with saunas and indoor pools, and the calm of an off-season walk on an empty Boardwalk.

New York has a bathing tradition of its own. There is a Russian and Turkish bathhouse in the East Village dating from the late 1800s, banyas in Brighton Beach and large Korean-style spas in Queens. Outside the baths, calm comes from a morning in Central Park or in the Cloisters' gardens rather than from the city itself.