Bethany Beach or Savannah?

Bethany Beach puts the sand at your door. A wide, guarded beach runs the length of the town, the surf is moderate, and within half an hour there are wild dunes at Delaware Seashore State Park and calm Inland Bays water for toddlers.

Savannah has no beach of its own, so a beach day means driving to Tybee Island. The sea there is warmer and the season longer, but the water is tinted by the marshes, and for most visitors the beach is one outing rather than the point of the stay.

Savannah has a real regional cuisine to explore: shrimp and grits, she-crab soup, oysters roasted over fire and family-style Southern dining rooms. On top of that there is a small group of chef-led restaurants in restored townhouses around the historic district.

At Bethany Beach eating out means crab feasts at picnic tables, boardwalk fries and taffy, and much of it closes out of season. It is fun for a summer week, but for a proper dinner most people drive to Rehoboth Beach.

Here the two are far apart. Savannah's 1733 plan of shaded squares survives almost intact, lined with Federal and Greek Revival houses. Add the Telfair Museums, the Owens-Thomas House and Bonaventure Cemetery and you have two full days of sightseeing on foot.

Bethany Beach offers a carved totem pole, a small local history collection about its church-camp origins and the wartime watchtowers along the shore. The nearest historic streets are in Lewes, a drive away.

Savannah gives you a proper night out. You can carry a to-go cup along River Street's cobbles, try the taverns around City Market and the cocktail rooms in old townhouses, and St Patrick's Day turns the whole city into a street party.

Bethany Beach calls itself the Quiet Resort and lives up to it, with a stroll on the boardwalk and then bed. Anyone who wants bars has to drive to Dewey Beach or Ocean City.

Both sit in flat, low coastal country with no hills, and both are best seen from a kayak or paddleboard. The difference is the water. Bethany Beach is a barrier island with surf, fishing at Indian River Inlet and paddling on the Inland Bays, and the wild ponies of Assateague are under an hour away.

Savannah's outdoors is salt marsh and tidal creeks, explored by kayak at high tide or on dolphin-watching boats, with the oak avenue at Wormsloe and Skidaway Island's trails on land. Both are humid and full of insects in summer, and Savannah's heat makes spring and autumn the time to go.

Savannah has the stronger day trips, led by Charleston about two hours north, along with antebellum Beaufort, Fort Pulaski and the historic district on Jekyll Island.

Bethany Beach's list is shorter and gentler: historic Lewes, the ferry across to Victorian Cape May, Berlin's main street and the neighbouring resorts. From either base, nearly every trip needs a car.

Bethany Beach is the easier choice with young children, because the whole vacation happens within a few streets of the sand and needs little planning. When they want more excitement, there are mini-golf courses and water parks along the coast road, and boardwalk rides in Rehoboth Beach or Ocean City. The catch is the calendar: outside summer most of what is aimed at children closes.

Savannah suits school-age children who like a story more than a sandpit. Trolley tours, the free river ferry, ghost walks, the forts and the birthplace of the Girl Scouts' founder hold their interest, and all of it still works in spring and autumn. Neither place has a zoo, an aquarium or a theme park.

Both have a centre you can walk, but Savannah's covers far more. Most of the sights, restaurants and hotels sit on the historic district's grid, and a free shuttle and a river ferry fill the gaps. You need a car only for Tybee, Wormsloe and Bonaventure.

In Bethany Beach you can walk only between your rental, the beach and the shops. Everything else needs the car, including getting there, and the coast highway is heavy with traffic on summer weekends.

Savannah offers the better browse in town: the restored storefronts of Broughton Street, work by art students and graduates, and antique dealers and bookshops around the squares. Bethany Beach itself has only surf shops and beach gifts. Its real draw is the outlet malls outside Rehoboth Beach, a short drive away, helped by Delaware's tax-free shopping.

Neither is cheap, but you pay in different ways. At Bethany Beach the big cost is a week's beach-house rental in July and August. Self-catering, free beach access and no sales tax help, and rates fall well in June and September.

Savannah charges weekend-destination prices for inns in the historic district, especially in spring. On the other hand its main pleasures, the squares, the park and the cemeteries, cost nothing, and midweek stays in summer are cheaper.

At Bethany Beach, live music means summer evenings of free cover bands and brass groups at the bandstand, heard from a blanket. The town has no theatre or concert hall, and the nearest alternatives are Rehoboth's small community theatre and its autumn jazz festival.

In Savannah the year is built around the spring Savannah Music Festival, which brings chamber music, jazz, blues and Americana into historic theatres and churches. The restored Lucas and Trustees theatres, a local philharmonic and autumn jazz in Forsyth Park add to it, but if you visit outside those seasons you may find only bar bands and buskers.

Neither has a spa tradition, so resting here means slowing down. Savannah makes doing nothing more pleasant: benches under the live oaks and the courtyard gardens and porches of old inns, best midweek in spring or autumn.

Bethany Beach offers plain quiet instead, with leafy residential streets, a calm evening boardwalk and an off-season that is close to silent. That suits reading and long walks but offers little beyond them.