Charleston or Wilmington?

The beaches are equally good in both cities, and in both they are about half an hour from town by car. Charleston's islands vary more in character. Folly Beach is surfy, Sullivan's Island is residential with old forts behind the dunes, Isle of Palms is resort-like, and Kiawah and Seabrook have long empty stretches. The water there is greenish and stirred up by the tides.

Wilmington's best is Wrightsville Beach, with wide pale sand and clearer water than Charleston's. Carolina Beach adds a boardwalk, and Kure Beach is quieter. On some days rip currents are a hazard at both.

Food is the widest gap between the two. Charleston cooks Lowcountry dishes with real ambition: shrimp and grits, she-crab soup, Carolina Gold rice and winter oyster roasts, all rooted in Gullah Geechee tradition. You can eat them in restored townhouse dining rooms around upper King Street or at whole-hog barbecue joints.

Wilmington eats well but simply, with local shrimp and flounder, waterfront raw bars, vinegar-sauced eastern Carolina barbecue and plenty of craft beer. It has only a few fine-dining tables, and the beach towns serve a lot of fried seafood. Neither city offers much international cooking.

Both have a large antebellum historic district and house museums that show the slavery behind the old wealth, but Charleston goes much deeper. Rainbow Row, the Battery and the single houses south of Broad form an old streetscape of rare completeness. Fort Sumter, the Old Slave Mart Museum and the International African American Museum give the history real weight.

Wilmington's riverfront district, with the Bellamy Mansion and the Cotton Exchange, makes a pleasant walk rather than the main event. Its best-known sight is the Battleship North Carolina across the river, and its museums are a modest list.

Nights out are much alike: bars, rooftops and student crowds at weekends, little club life, and closing time at 2am. Charleston's upper King Street is a little more polished, with cocktail rooms and oyster bars, and the French Quarter has quieter wine bars. Wilmington's Front Street is more casual, and the beach bars at Wrightsville and Carolina Beach come into their own in summer.

Both sit in flat, watery country with no hills, humid summers and biting insects. Charleston's strength is paddling the spartina marsh creeks among dolphins and live oaks hung with Spanish moss, with alligators and birdlife inland in the ACE Basin and Francis Marion National Forest.

Wilmington has a slight edge in what you can see only there. Masonboro Island is an undeveloped barrier island reached only by boat, and the Venus flytrap grows wild in Carolina Beach State Park. Surfing, sailing and pier fishing are also more a part of everyday life.

Charleston has more to see within driving distance. Middleton Place, Magnolia and Drayton Hall on the Ashley River are about half an hour away, and McLeod Plantation is closer still. Savannah, and Beaufort in South Carolina with its Gullah sea islands, each make a strong full day.

Wilmington's outings are smaller in scale: Southport and the ferry to car-free Bald Head Island, Fort Fisher and Brunswick Town. New Bern and North Carolina's own Beaufort are each about two hours north. You need a car for both lists.

Both work about equally well with children, with beaches and an aquarium at the heart of the trip. In Charleston the attractions are grouped on the downtown waterfront: the South Carolina Aquarium and the Children's Museum, with the aircraft carrier at Patriots Point across the harbour and the boat out to Fort Sumter.

Wilmington is more of a summer beach base. It has old-fashioned rides on the Carolina Beach boardwalk, rental houses near the sand, and the battleship's decks for wet days, but every outing means getting in the car.

Beyond the old town neither city is easy without a car, but Charleston manages better. Most of what a visitor wants on the peninsula is within about 3km on foot, and pedicabs and a free shuttle fill the gaps, so you need wheels only for the beaches and plantations.

Wilmington's walkable riverfront covers less ground. The beaches are 15km or more away and the buses are of little use to visitors, so most people keep a hire car for the whole stay.

Charleston is the better place to shop. King Street changes along its length, from antiques on lower King through national fashion brands to independent boutiques uptown. The sweetgrass baskets woven by Gullah artisans at City Market are a real local craft to take home.

Wilmington offers a pleasant browse along Front Street and in the Cotton Exchange, plus surf wear in the beach towns, but nothing you would plan a day around.

Wilmington is the cheaper of the two, though neither is a bargain. Charleston's hotels on the peninsula charge big-city rates, its well-known restaurants do the same, and paid house and plantation tours add up. Staying in Mount Pleasant saves money but means driving in every day.

In Wilmington, rooms outside summer are reasonable and casual seafood and barbecue are fair value. Beachfront rentals cost more in summer, and a hire car is an expense few visitors avoid.

For most of the year the two are evenly matched, each with a historic theatre at its heart: the Dock Street Theatre in Charleston and Thalian Hall, a 19th-century opera house, in Wilmington.

The difference is in what is on and when. Charleston has Spoleto Festival USA, over two weeks of opera, dance and jazz each late spring, and Gullah storytelling and song all year. Wilmington's strengths are its outdoor stages by Greenfield Lake and the river and its jazz and blues festivals in the warmer months.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, so in both, wellness means hotel and resort spas. Charleston is a little better for unwinding: its shaded walled gardens, quiet church courtyards and evenings at White Point Garden make the old town itself restful, and the resort spas on Kiawah are close by. Wilmington has yoga studios, day spas and calm riverfront evenings, and is easiest to relax in away from busy summer weekends.