Bethany Beach or Milwaukee?

Bethany Beach is built around its beach, a wide strip of pale sand with lifeguards and Atlantic surf. Within half an hour there are also the dunes of Delaware Seashore State Park, quiet Fenwick Island and calm bay water for small children.

Milwaukee's lakefront beaches, Bradford Beach above all, are good for volleyball and an afternoon on the sand. But Lake Michigan is fresh, has no tide and is cold enough that many visitors only paddle. If your trip is about swimming, Bethany Beach is the only real choice.

Bethany Beach eats simply and by the season: steamed crabs on paper, fried clams, boardwalk fries and taffy. Many of its kitchens close outside summer, and Rehoboth Beach is the nearest place with more choice.

Milwaukee has a real local cuisine rooted in its German, Polish and Serbian immigrants. There is the Friday fish fry, the supper club, bratwurst, cheese curds and frozen custard, brewing is its oldest trade, and the South Side has strong Mexican cooking. You get far more to eat here, in any season.

Of the two, only Milwaukee has sightseeing in the usual sense. The Calatrava wing of the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Harley-Davidson Museum, the Basilica of St Josaphat and the old warehouses of the Third Ward fill two or three good days.

Bethany Beach has its carved totem pole, a small history collection about the church camp the town grew from, and the Second World War watchtowers along the shore. For museums, visitors drive to Lewes or further.

Bethany Beach chooses to have no nightlife. An evening there is a walk on the boardwalk and an early night, and people who want bars drive to Dewey Beach or Ocean City.

Milwaukee's strength is the neighbourhood tavern. Around it are the loud Water Street strip, Brady Street's mix of dive bars and cocktail places, and the taprooms of Walker's Point. It is a city for drinking rather than clubbing, and it is liveliest on summer patios and game nights.

Both offer flat, gentle outdoors rather than anything wild, but in very different settings. Bethany Beach sits on a barrier island of dunes, salt marsh and shallow bays, made for kayaking, crabbing and birdwatching. The high point is the wild ponies of Assateague Island.

Milwaukee's outdoors is a city lakefront: Olmsted's Lake Park, long cycling trails and kayaking on the river through the centre. For proper hiking, the glacial hills of Kettle Moraine are about an hour away. Bethany's summer brings heat and mosquitoes, while Milwaukee's long winters shorten its outdoor season.

Milwaukee has the stronger day trips, mainly because Chicago is an easy train ride away. Madison, Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings in Racine and the old mill town of Cedarburg are closer to hand.

From Bethany Beach the drives lead to pleasant small places: historic Lewes, the Victorian main street of Berlin, and the ferry across Delaware Bay to Cape May. They make good afternoons out, but none compares with a day in a major city.

Both work well with children, and Bethany Beach is slightly better for a classic summer week. It is small, safe and quiet, with a guarded beach, bike rides, crabbing and free family evenings at the bandstand. It has no zoo or aquarium, though, and goes quiet out of season.

Milwaukee has the big attractions Bethany lacks: a large zoo, the freshwater aquariums at Discovery World, a children's museum and the Domes for a cold day. It suits families who want variety more than a beach routine, and summer is the best time to go.

In both places you need a car once you leave the centre, but the centres themselves are quite different. Bethany Beach is a small, flat town where you can walk or cycle between your rental and the beach all week. Beyond that there is only a seasonal coast bus, and the highway is jammed on summer weekends.

Milwaukee has a walkable downtown and Third Ward, the Riverwalk, a short streetcar line and city buses, and parking is easy. It also has a train to Chicago, while Bethany Beach has no rail link at all.

Neither is a place to go shopping. Milwaukee is slightly better, thanks to the independent boutiques, design shops and galleries of the Third Ward and the Wisconsin cheese and sausage at the Public Market.

In town, Bethany Beach has beach boutiques and surf shops. Its real draw is the large outlet malls outside Rehoboth Beach, where Delaware has no sales tax. Go there for brands, and to Milwaukee for local goods.

Milwaukee is the easier place for your budget. Hotels cost well below coastal rates, taverns and fish fries are reasonably priced, and the lakefront, the parks and many festivals are free. Big summer weekends do push room rates up.

In July and August, Bethany Beach means renting a beach house by the week and paying resort prices for meals. Cooking for yourself, free beach access and no sales tax help, and going in June or September cuts the cost sharply.

Milwaukee has a full set of resident companies: the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Florentine Opera, the Milwaukee Ballet and the Milwaukee Repertory Theater. Touring bands play the 1895 Pabst Theater, and Summerfest fills the lakefront for weeks each summer.

In Bethany Beach the stage is the bandstand by the boardwalk, with free summer concerts by cover bands and brass groups. It is pleasant on a warm evening with a blanket, but anyone after theatre or concerts will find little nearby beyond Rehoboth's community theatre.

Neither has a spa tradition, so rest means slowing down rather than booking treatments. Bethany Beach does this a little better, with leafy residential streets, a calm boardwalk where you hear little but the surf, and near silence in spring and autumn.

In Milwaukee the most restful thing is a walk along the lakefront or the Riverwalk, and for a proper spa day people drive about an hour north to Kohler. The city's taverns and festivals pull you the other way.