New York or Newport, Rhode Island?

The two are broadly level on beaches, but the beaches are very different in kind. New York's are city beaches at the end of the subway: the Coney Island boardwalk and its amusement park, Russian-speaking Brighton Beach, and the long surf strand of the Rockaways, all packed on summer weekends.

Newport's beaches are a few minutes from the harbour and closer in scale. Third Beach and the Gooseberry cove have calm water for paddling, and First Beach sits under the Cliff Walk. The water is slightly cooler than New York's, and the swimming season is the same short summer.

New York is in a different league. Whole communities cook their own cuisines here, Fujianese in Flushing, Tibetan in Jackson Heights and Polish in Greenpoint, and above that sits one of the world's deepest fine-dining scenes. Slices, bagels and deli pastrami keep things cheap at street level.

Newport does one thing well: New England seafood eaten on the wharves, such as lobster rolls, clam cakes and Rhode Island's clear-broth chowder. After a few days the choice feels narrow, and some places cut their hours in winter. Locals go to Providence when they want more variety.

New York has far more to see. The Met, MoMA, the Natural History museum and the Cloisters could fill a week on their own, and the skyline landmarks, from the Brooklyn Bridge to Grand Central, add the city's own nineteenth- and twentieth-century story.

Newport is smaller but focused, and it has a few things New York cannot match. The Vanderbilt-era palaces along Bellevue Avenue still have their rooms intact, and the colonial streets of the Point and Historic Hill are among the best preserved in the country. Touro Synagogue is there too. Two or three days covers it.

The gap is huge. New York goes on all night: dive bars in the East Village, wine bars in the West Village, rooftop bars over Midtown, and club nights in Bushwick and Williamsburg that end after sunrise. The trains keep running the whole time.

In Newport a night out means pubs and waterfront decks around Thames Street. They are lively on a July Saturday with sailors and wedding parties, but the town has almost no clubs and goes quiet early. Out of season, only a few local pubs stay busy.

These two are close, but the outdoors means different things in each. In Newport the sea is right there: the Cliff Walk above the surf, the wave-cut ledges at Brenton Point, seabirds at Sachuest Point, and sailing, paddling or cycling the coast roads, though there are no hills.

New York's nature is mostly designed parkland, such as Central Park, Prospect Park and the High Line, plus the birdlife of Jamaica Bay. For real climbs you take the train up the Hudson to Breakneck Ridge, and October colour there is the highlight.

Both make good bases for day trips. The main difference is how you get there. From New York the train takes you to Philadelphia's colonial old town, Princeton, New Haven and the Hudson Valley art sites at Dia Beacon and Storm King, so you never need to drive.

From Newport nearly everything needs a car: Providence and the RISD Museum, Mystic's seaport, the whaling museum in New Bedford, and Little Compton on the way. Block Island, reached by a seasonal ferry, is the outing New York has no equivalent of.

New York has much more for children: the dinosaur halls and planetarium, the Bronx Zoo, the aircraft carrier on the Hudson, the Hall of Science, and Central Park's boating and playgrounds. The catch is the effort. Stations with only stairs are hard with a pushchair, and Midtown crowds tire small children quickly.

Newport is easier and calmer. Children can paddle at Third Beach, ride the carousel, climb around Fort Adams and handle crabs in the touch tanks at the small aquarium. Beyond that the town runs short of things for them, and the long mansion tours appeal to parents rather than children.

New York is far easier to get around without a car. Manhattan's numbered grid makes walking simple, the subway runs through the night across four of the five boroughs, and ferries and Citi Bike fill the gaps. The network takes a little learning, and the journey in from the airport is often the clumsiest part of the trip.

Newport's centre is compact, with the harbour, Thames Street and the colonial quarter close together, and a summer trolley runs up to the mansions. Once you leave the centre, though, you need a car, and summer traffic on the island bridges and the hunt for parking can take up a lot of the day.

New York is one of the world's great shopping cities. It has the flagships of Fifth Avenue, luxury houses on Madison, department stores such as Bergdorf Goodman and Macy's, cast-iron SoHo, and vintage and records in Greenpoint. Specialists in rare books and sneakers add depth that few cities match.

Newport is for browsing rather than serious shopping. The wharves have galleries, preppy sailing clothes and jewellery, and Spring and Franklin Streets have antiques, but there is no department store and little fashion.

Both are expensive. Newport is slightly the easier on the budget, mainly because its prices drop sharply in late autumn and winter, and staying in Middletown or coming midweek helps further. Even so, the centre has few budget rooms, and seafood dinners and mansion tickets soon add up.

New York stays dear all year, with tax and tips added to every meal. It offers more ways to cut costs, though: cheap slices and Queens restaurants, a flat subway fare, free sights such as the Staten Island Ferry and the High Line, and cheaper beds in Brooklyn or New Jersey.

New York has more to offer than almost anywhere. There is Broadway and Off-Broadway, the Met Opera, the Philharmonic and New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center, the great orchestras at Carnegie Hall, jazz in the Village and Harlem, and gospel on Sunday mornings.

Newport's name in music comes from a few summer weeks. The Jazz and Folk festivals play at Fort Adams with the harbour behind the stage, and chamber music fills the mansion ballrooms in July. For the rest of the year there are pub bands and community theatre, and little else.

Neither is a true wellness destination, and they offer rest in different ways. New York has a real bathing tradition: an East Village bathhouse from the late 1800s, banyas in Brighton Beach and big Korean-style spas in Queens. Step outside, though, and the noise and pace are back.

Newport has nothing like that, only hotel spas and yoga studios. What it has instead is a calm setting. In May and June, or September and October, the Cliff Walk is quiet and the town slows down, which New York cannot offer.