Boston or Ocean City, Maryland?

Ocean City is built around its beach: about 16km of wide, soft sand with access from almost every street, lifeguards all along it and summer water warm enough to spend the day in the surf. When the southern blocks fill up, the condo stretches to the north and the wild beach on Assateague give you room.

Boston has sand but not much of a beach culture. Revere Beach is a short ride on the Blue Line and Crane Beach and Singing Beach are lovely on the North Shore, but the water is cold enough that swimming is a treat on a hot day, not a plan.

Both cities live on seafood, but they cook it differently. Boston has oysters from Duxbury and Wellfleet, chowder and lobster rolls, plus the Italian pastry shops of the North End, dim sum in Chinatown and chef-led restaurants in Cambridge and the South End, so you can eat well for a week.

Ocean City's best meal is a crab feast, steamed blue crabs with Old Bay eaten off brown paper with a mallet, followed by boardwalk fries and frozen custard. Past that the choice is mostly diners, chains and bar food, and many kitchens cut back once summer ends.

The gap here is very wide. Boston packs the Revolution into one walk from Boston Common to the USS Constitution, adds the gaslit streets of Beacon Hill and Back Bay's brownstones, and has the Museum of Fine Arts, the Gardner Museum and Harvard just across the river.

In Ocean City, the boardwalk itself is the heritage, along with the Life-Saving Station Museum and an early twentieth-century carousel at the inlet. That is an afternoon at most.

The two are about level, but the nights feel very different. Boston's evenings revolve around pubs: Irish bars near Faneuil Hall, sports crowds around Fenway, cocktail lounges in the Seaport and student bars in Allston and Cambridge, open all year, with the subway stopping shortly after midnight.

Ocean City is a summer party town, with open-air bayside bars, sand underfoot, sunset crowds and dance bars along the Coastal Highway, all loud and young. Both close at 2am, but from October most of Ocean City's scene goes quiet.

Boston has more variety outdoors. Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, sailing and kayaking on the Charles, ferries to the Harbor Islands and whale-watching trips out to Stellwagen Bank all start in the city, and Cape Ann, the Blue Hills and Walden Pond are within an hour. Autumn foliage adds a season of its own.

Ocean City's landscape is flat and open: marsh, shallow bays and Assateague's dunes and pine woods, where wild ponies graze. Its best outdoor days are on the water, paddling the back bays, crabbing or going out for offshore sport fishing.

From Boston, the day trips go deep into American history. Salem and Concord are easy by train, and Lexington, Plymouth, the North Shore fishing towns and the mansions of Newport fill out a long list.

Ocean City's surroundings are quieter. You can visit the old main streets of Berlin and Snow Hill, the pony village of Chincoteague, Rehoboth's restaurants or Lewes with its ferry to Cape May. These are pleasant outings rather than destinations in their own right, and nearly all of them need a car.

Ocean City is slightly the stronger choice with children, because the whole resort is designed for them. They get a lifeguarded beach, two boardwalk amusement parks, water parks, go-karts and mini-golf, and a condo with a kitchen makes the days simple. It is mostly a summer offer, though, and peak weekends are crowded.

Boston is good with children all year. The New England Aquarium, the Museum of Science, the Children's Museum and the swan boats in the Public Garden are the highlights, with re-enactors and a whale-watching trip turning history and nature into an outing.

Boston is a city to walk. Downtown, the North End, Beacon Hill and Back Bay sit close together, and the T and harbour ferries cover Cambridge, the airport and Charlestown. The network is old and slow in places, but a car is more of a burden than a help.

Ocean City is a long, narrow strip along one busy highway and is designed for drivers. The boardwalk and the old downtown are fine on foot or by bike, and a summer bus runs the length of the town, but most visitors keep a car for the whole stay.

Boston has proper shopping streets. Newbury Street's boutiques and flagships run through Back Bay, with malls at Copley and the Prudential Center, antiques on Charles Street and bookshops in Harvard Square. In Ocean City, shopping means T-shirts, surf gear, taffy and fudge on the boardwalk, plus an outlet centre over the bridge.

Neither is cheap, but Ocean City costs clearly less, and the gap is widest on rooms. Boston's hotels are among the most expensive in the country in every season. In Ocean City the steep rates are mainly for oceanfront rooms on summer weekends. Eating out works the same way: in Boston every meal costs well above the national average, while in Ocean City the bill climbs mostly when a crab feast or a seafood dinner is on the table.

Timing also works differently in each. Boston is at its dearest in the foliage season and around the late-spring university graduations, which are some of its nicest times to visit. Ocean City is cheapest in late May and September, when room rates fall well below midsummer. In Boston the free Freedom Trail and parks help a little, but you cannot see the city cheaply in any season.

Boston is far ahead here. The Boston Symphony Orchestra plays in Symphony Hall, the Pops and the Handel and Haydn Society share the calendar, and the city adds Boston Ballet, serious drama at the American Repertory Theater and jazz rooms full of Berklee students.

Ocean City offers touring comedians, tribute bands and free summer concerts at the boardwalk bandstand, which is pleasant on a warm evening but nothing to plan a trip around.

Neither is a place for a restorative retreat. Boston does slightly better, with day spas in Back Bay and quiet hours in the Arnold Arboretum, on the shaded Esplanade or in the side streets of Beacon Hill.

Ocean City in high summer is noisy around the clock. Calm there means the shoulder months, when an early walk along an empty beach at the northern end is the most restful thing on offer.