Cape May or Virginia Beach?

Both towns have a long, lifeguarded strip of Atlantic sand with a promenade behind it, but Virginia Beach has the edge. The sand is wider and there is more variety along it: surfing by the fishing pier, calm Chesapeake Bay water around First Landing, and the dunes and rental houses of Sandbridge to the south.

Cape May's beach is smaller in scale and gentler in feel. Its quiet corner is Cape May Point. Its oddity is Sunset Beach on the bay, where people search for the quartz pebbles known as Cape May diamonds.

Cape May cooks what its own fishing fleet lands: scallops, flounder and local oysters, served everywhere from dockside shacks to white-tablecloth rooms in restored Victorian houses. Long porch breakfasts are part of the pleasure. Away from the fish it is mostly fudge, taffy and ice cream, and in winter many kitchens close.

Virginia Beach looks to the Chesapeake instead, for blue crab in crab cakes or she-crab soup and oysters from Lynnhaven Inlet. The best of it is by the water on the bay side, not on the resort strip, which leans on chains and buffets. For more range, people drive half an hour to Norfolk.

Neither town is somewhere to come for museums, and both are covered in a day or two. The difference is in kind. In Cape May the sight is the town itself: a National Historic Landmark district of gingerbread cottages and porched hotels, with the Emlen Physick Estate to tour and a lighthouse to climb.

Virginia Beach has scattered landmarks rather than a historic townscape. The most important is Cape Henry, where English colonists came ashore in 1607, with its 1792 lighthouse nearby, along with the early colonial Adam Thoroughgood House and the King Neptune statue on the boardwalk.

Virginia Beach is the place for a night out. In summer the Oceanfront fills with beach bars, rooftop decks and sports bars, loud and good-natured, with a crowd of vacationers and sailors. Town Center adds cocktail lounges for a calmer drink. Cape May barely competes: a few pubs and hotel bars near the pedestrian mall, a cover band, and a town mostly asleep by midnight.

Neither has a club scene, and each borrows from a livelier neighbour: the Wildwoods boardwalk for Cape May, and downtown Norfolk and Ghent for Virginia Beach.

Migration is what sets Cape May apart. In autumn hawks, songbirds and monarch butterflies stream through Cape May Point State Park and the fields at Higbee Beach. In the cooler months the boats go out for whales as well as the summer dolphins.

Virginia Beach has more ground to cover on foot or by bike, with maritime forest and cypress swamp at First Landing and the long, empty barrier spit of Back Bay and False Cape. It also has a surfing tradition that Cape May lacks. The coast is flat in both places, and both have kayaking and summer dolphin-watching.

Virginia Beach is much better placed for outings. Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown make a first-rate history day about an hour away. Norfolk's battleship and waterfront are close by, and Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks is within reach.

Cape May's best outing is the ferry across Delaware Bay to colonial Lewes. The Wildwoods and Atlantic City are up the coast, but Philadelphia makes a long, tiring day. From either town you need a car for nearly all of it.

A week with children in Cape May is built from small, slow pleasures, while Virginia Beach has bigger attractions to fill the days. In Cape May that means surrey rides on the promenade, crabbing on the bay, the lighthouse climb and a free county zoo. For rides and arcades you drive to the Wildwoods, and some historic-district B&Bs do not accept small children.

Virginia Beach has the Virginia Aquarium with its sea turtles and otters, a water park, and calm bay beaches for toddlers. A large amusement park and Colonial Williamsburg, where children join in with the costumed tradespeople, are both within an hour.

Cape May is far easier once you arrive. The historic district, the promenade and the Washington Street Mall are a short, flat walk apart, bikes handle the rest, and parking is the main nuisance.

Virginia Beach is walkable only along the Oceanfront boardwalk. Beyond it lies suburban sprawl with sparse buses and heavy summer traffic. Both towns are awkward to reach without a car, and Cape May has no passenger rail at all.

Cape May is a small-town browse along the three pedestrian blocks of the Washington Street Mall, with independent boutiques, bookshops, antique dealers and galleries. Virginia Beach is suburban American, with a regional mall and chain stores at Town Center, and its long-established Oceanfront surf shops are the local touch. You wouldn't plan a trip to either around the shopping.

Virginia Beach is the cheaper stay. Summer oceanfront rooms still cost a fair amount, but the beach, boardwalk and state parks are free or close to it, and rooms fall sharply out of season. The car is the main extra cost.

Cape May is expensive at its peak. Victorian B&Bs and oceanfront hotels set minimum stays, the better restaurants charge like a big city, and you pay for beach tags and parking. Spring and autumn are kinder, and many visitors on a budget stay in the Wildwoods and come in for the day.

Virginia Beach and its neighbour offer a wider programme. Touring rock and country acts play the outdoor amphitheatre, there is a performing arts centre at Town Center and there are free concerts along the boardwalk. Half an hour away in Norfolk are the Virginia Opera, the Virginia Symphony and the spring Virginia Arts Festival.

Cape May's offer is smaller and more intimate: a long theatre season in a converted church, historic American drama, and a long-established chamber music festival in late spring and early summer. It makes for a pleasant evening but shrinks sharply after the summer.

The two are close here, and the difference is in the setting. Cape May's calm is old-fashioned and indoors-out: you rest at the guesthouse itself, on a deep veranda or in a quiet front room, and the flat, shaded streets suit an aimless ride. The day winds down with the light fading over the bay.

In Virginia Beach the calm is out in the open, on the boardwalk at dawn before the resort wakes up. For a massage or a treatment, both towns rely on hotel spas and a handful of day spas, with no bathhouse tradition in either. Summer weekends are busy in both, so spring or autumn is the time to come for rest.