Bethany Beach or Boston?

Bethany Beach is built around its beach. Pale sand runs the length of the town, lifeguards watch the main stretch all summer and the Atlantic surf is usually moderate. Within half an hour there are also the undeveloped dunes of Delaware Seashore State Park, surf and fishing at Indian River Inlet, and the calmer Inland Bays for small children.

Boston has sand but little beach life. Revere Beach is a few stops out on the Blue Line, and the long dunes of Crane Beach in Ipswich are worth the trip. The water stays cold even in high summer, though, so in Boston a swim is a brief treat on a hot day.

Bethany Beach eats like a seaside town: steamed blue crabs on paper at picnic tables, fried clams, boardwalk fries and ice cream. Many places close outside the season, and the nearest wider choice is in Rehoboth Beach.

Boston has far more to offer. Duxbury oysters at Seaport raw bars, cannoli and espresso in the North End, late dim sum in Chinatown and chef-led cooking in Cambridge and the South End make eating out a real part of the trip.

Bethany Beach has a carved totem pole, a small local history collection and Second World War watchtowers along the shore, which add up to an hour or so of sightseeing.

Boston could hardly be more different. The Freedom Trail runs from the Common to the USS Constitution, Beacon Hill and Back Bay keep their nineteenth-century streets intact, and the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum could fill a couple of days on their own.

Bethany Beach calls itself the Quiet Resort, and evenings rarely go beyond dinner and a stroll on the boardwalk. If you want late beach bars, you have to drive about 20 minutes north to Dewey Beach or south to Ocean City.

Boston has a real night out, built around bars rather than clubs. You can choose between Irish pubs near Faneuil Hall, sports bars around Fenway on game nights and student bars in Allston, which keep even weeknights busy. Nights still end early, with the bars shut by 2am and the subway stopping soon after midnight.

Bethany Beach is flat and gentle: kayaking and crabbing on the Inland Bays, ospreys over the salt marsh and the wild ponies of Assateague less than an hour away. It is lovely for easy days, though high summer brings mosquitoes.

Boston has more variety. Olmsted's Emerald Necklace of parks, sailing on the Charles, ferries to the Harbor Islands and whale-watching for humpbacks on Stellwagen Bank are all close at hand. The rocky shore of Cape Ann and Walden Pond are within an hour, and the autumn colour is a highlight.

From Bethany Beach the outings are pleasant rather than important. Choices include historic Lewes with its maritime museum, the Victorian main street of Berlin, the ferry across Delaware Bay to Cape May and the bigger resorts such as Ocean City.

From Boston you reach some of the defining places of American history. Salem and Concord are both on the commuter rail, while the Lexington battlefield needs a car or a bus. Plymouth lies to the south, and the Gilded Age mansions of Newport are about an hour and a half away.

Both work well with children, in different ways. Bethany Beach is a family resort built around guarded sand, bike rides, crabbing off the docks and free evening concerts at the bandstand. It has no zoo or aquarium, though, and much of it closes after summer.

Boston has more to do. The New England Aquarium, the Museum of Science, the Children's Museum and the swan boats in the Public Garden keep children busy in any season, although winters are cold.

In Bethany Beach you can park the car on arrival and leave it there. The town is small and flat enough to walk or cycle between the rental, the beach and the shops. Beyond the town it is a different story. With no train and only a seasonal bus along the coast, supermarkets, restaurants outside the centre and every day trip depend on the car, and summer weekends bring heavy traffic to the coast highway.

Boston works the other way round. Downtown, the North End, Beacon Hill and Back Bay are close enough together to cover on foot, and the T reaches Cambridge, Fenway and the airport, though some lines are slow. With parking so scarce, a car only becomes useful once you leave the city.

Bethany Beach has a short row of surf shops, gift stores and bookshops in town. Its serious shopping is at the outlet malls outside Rehoboth Beach, helped by Delaware's tax-free shopping. Boston has more to browse on foot: fashion and independent boutiques in the brownstones of Newbury Street, luxury labels at Copley Place, antiques on Charles Street and bookshops around Harvard Square.

Neither place is cheap, but Bethany Beach is easier on the wallet. A beach house shared by a family, self-catering, free beach access and no sales tax keep a week's costs under control, and June and September cost noticeably less than high summer.

Boston's hotel rooms are among the most expensive in the country, and meals and drinks cost well above the national average. The free Freedom Trail and parks and a fairly priced subway help only a little.

In Bethany Beach, live music means free summer concerts at the bandstand by the boardwalk, where cover bands and brass groups play to families on blankets. Boston has a serious classical tradition: the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Symphony Hall, the Pops on the Esplanade and Boston Ballet. Add drama at the Huntington and the A.R.T. and Berklee students in small jazz rooms, and you could fill every evening of a week.

Neither place has a spa or bathing tradition, so the difference is in the kind of quiet on offer. Bethany Beach is slow all round, with leafy residential streets, a calm boardwalk in the evening and near silence in spring and autumn. Boston is brisk and busy, and resting there means a day spa in Back Bay or a slow afternoon in the Public Garden or the Arnold Arboretum.