Baltimore or Myrtle Beach?

Baltimore's waterfront is a working harbour. The nearest swimming is at Sandy Point State Park on the Chesapeake, a brackish bay beach about forty minutes away, where sea nettles drift in during high summer. The Atlantic is three hours off.

Myrtle Beach is the opposite case. About 100km of wide, pale sand runs along the Grand Strand, and the ocean is shallow and gently shelving with small waves that suit children and long swims. The central blocks are crowded in summer, but the dune-backed beaches towards Surfside and Garden City are calmer.

Baltimore's cooking has more personality: steamed blue crabs with Old Bay, lump crab cakes, and old market halls such as Lexington Market. Add Little Italy's red-sauce kitchens and a handful of chef-led restaurants in Hampden and Harbor East, and you have several days of varied meals.

Myrtle Beach is set up to feed crowds, so the strip runs to seafood buffets, pancake houses and chains. Its best plates are a short drive out, with fresh shrimp and flounder at Murrells Inlet and Calabash-style fried fish to the north, but an evening or two covers them.

Baltimore offers real sightseeing. The Baltimore Museum of Art holds the Cone Collection of Matisse works, and there is also the Walters, Fort McHenry with its national anthem story, and the B&O roundhouse. In Fells Point and Mount Vernon the streets themselves are worth walking, lined with brick warehouses and marble-stooped rowhouses.

Myrtle Beach is a twentieth-century resort with little past on show. Brookgreen Gardens has sculpture among live oaks and tells the story of the people enslaved on the old plantation. With the Moorish-style Atalaya next door it makes a good day out, and that is most of it.

Both towns are better for a drink than for serious clubbing, but the style differs. Baltimore spreads its evenings across neighbourhoods that are lively all year: old taverns around the cobbled square in Fells Point, rooftops and sports bars in Federal Hill, and dive bars with an artistic crowd in Station North.

Myrtle Beach is louder and seasonal. Beach bars, rooftop decks and the dance clubs in its entertainment complexes keep summer nights going late, and North Myrtle Beach still dances the shag, the Carolina beach dance. Out of season much of it closes early.

Neither has dramatic scenery, but Baltimore has more variety within reach. The wooded river gorges of Patapsco Valley start at the city's edge, Gunpowder Falls has trout streams and a rail trail, and the Chesapeake is fine sailing water. The Blue Ridge hills are about an hour and a half west.

Myrtle Beach's outdoors is flat and watery: maritime forest, and salt marsh with herons and alligators at Huntington Beach State Park. You can kayak through the Waccamaw's cypress swamps, take a dolphin cruise or play golf on dozens of courses. There is no real hiking.

Baltimore is one of the best-placed bases on the East Coast. Washington DC is about an hour away by train and Philadelphia a little further. By car, Annapolis, the Gettysburg battlefield, Harpers Ferry and the Eastern Shore villages all make comfortable days out.

From Myrtle Beach the standout is Charleston, two hours south by car, a long day but a rewarding one. Georgetown, Pawleys Island and Wilmington are quieter options. There is no useful train, so every outing depends on driving.

Baltimore gives families a strong two or three days around the Inner Harbor. The National Aquarium, the Maryland Science Center and Port Discovery are within walking distance of each other, and the zoo in Druid Hill and the B&O locomotives are further out. Beyond the harbour the city is uneven, and families mostly move about by taxi.

Myrtle Beach is designed around children for a full week. There is calm surf, plus kitchen suites and kiddie pools at the resorts, an amusement park with an old wooden roller coaster, and pirate-themed mini-golf on every road. The catches are heavy traffic and rowdy spring break weeks.

Baltimore is far easier on foot. The Inner Harbor, Fells Point, Federal Hill and Little Italy are linked by a waterfront promenade, water taxis cross to Fort McHenry, and fast trains run to Washington and Philadelphia. Only outlying places such as Hampden and the zoo really call for a taxi or car.

Myrtle Beach sits along multi-lane highways with few pavements, sparse buses and slow summer traffic on Kings Highway. Walking works within the oceanfront blocks and along the sand itself, but a car is close to essential.

Neither is a shopping destination, and what each offers is quite different. Baltimore's browsing is independent and quirky: vintage clothes and local art on the Avenue in Hampden, antiques and records in Fells Point, and Old Bay souvenirs at the markets.

Myrtle Beach is better for bargains on brands, with two large outlet centres, waterfront shopping complexes and the town-centre feel of the Market Common, plus enormous beachwear stores. Sweetgrass baskets sold on the road south are the main local craft.

Baltimore's hotels are cheaper than Washington's or New York's, and its two great art museums are free. Even so, the harbour hotels, restaurant bills with tip and the taxis most visitors end up using keep it a mid-priced American city.

Myrtle Beach makes a budget go further, thanks to a huge supply of motels and rental condos, many with kitchens, and low rates outside summer. Timing matters: prices jump sharply in July and on long weekends, and almost nobody avoids the cost of a car.

Baltimore has a genuine arts season. The Baltimore Symphony plays at the Meyerhoff, Peabody students and faculty give free concerts, touring Broadway shows come to the Hippodrome, and Center Stage and Everyman stage repertory theatre. Station North's small clubs add indie and experimental music.

On Myrtle Beach's stages the entertainment is polished and family-friendly: country, gospel and Christmas revues, dinner shows with knights or pirates, touring country acts, and cover bands in the beach bars. It makes a fun evening out, but there is nothing for lovers of classical music or serious drama.

Neither city is made for rest, but Myrtle Beach gives a slow stay more to work with. Baltimore's calm comes in small pockets of a working city: the harbour promenade before the day gets going, a bench under the old trees of Druid Hill, or an unhurried hour among the Walters' collections. Apart from those, there are hotel spas and a few yoga classes in Harbor East or Hampden, and visitors who want real quiet tend to drive out to the Eastern Shore.

Myrtle Beach has the sea and a long shoreline to retreat along, which Baltimore cannot offer. The moment to go is spring or autumn, when the treatment rooms at the oceanfront and golf resorts are calmer and the southern beaches around Pawleys Island slow right down. Midsummer is another matter, because the central strip fills with noise and traffic. Neither has thermal springs or a bathing tradition.