New York or Wilmington?

New York does have real ocean beaches, reached by subway: Coney Island with its boardwalk and old amusement park, and the longer, surfier Rockaways. The water is cool for most of the year, though, and pleasant only in high summer, when the sand is packed at weekends.

Wilmington is the better beach destination. Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach and Kure Beach each have a different mood, from polished to family to quiet, and the sea is warm enough for swimming from late May well into autumn. You do have to drive out from the river city, and the rip currents need watching.

Eating is one of the main reasons to choose New York. You can have Fujianese food in Flushing, Tibetan in Jackson Heights and Italian on Arthur Avenue, as well as tasting menus at the top end and slices, bagels and deli pastrami at every corner.

Wilmington eats well on a smaller canvas. Local shrimp, flounder and oysters, whole-hog barbecue with vinegar sauce and a handful of modern Southern kitchens downtown make a few good days of meals, and the craft breweries are worth a visit. Beyond the regional cooking, the choice runs thin quickly.

New York has collections of world rank, from the Met and MoMA to the Natural History museum and the Cloisters, along with landmarks such as Ellis Island, the Brooklyn Bridge and Grand Central. You could spend a fortnight on its sights and still leave things out.

Both cities tell mostly nineteenth-century stories, but on very different scales. Wilmington's version is its large historic district of antebellum houses under live oaks, the Bellamy Mansion's account of the old port and its enslaved workers, and the Battleship North Carolina across the river. That is a rewarding two days, not a week.

New York's nights have no real end. The East Village has dive bars and cocktail rooms, the Village has a gay scene that goes back to Stonewall, and in Bushwick and Williamsburg the warehouse parties run past sunrise.

A night out in Wilmington means the bars and rooftop terraces of Front Street, lively with students at weekends, or a beach bar in summer. It is friendly and casual, but there is almost no club scene, the bars close at 2am, and weeknights out of season are quiet.

The two are about even outdoors, but they offer very different things. New York's nature is mostly designed parkland and waterfront walks, plus birdwatching at Jamaica Bay, and a train up the Hudson brings proper rocky climbs at Breakneck Ridge.

Wilmington is flat, so there is no hiking with a view. Instead it has marsh, tidal creeks and water: you can kayak out to undeveloped Masonboro Island, surf or fish off the piers, and see wild Venus flytraps in Carolina Beach State Park, a plant found almost nowhere else.

New York has the stronger list of day trips, and most are reachable by train. Philadelphia's Independence Hall is about an hour and a half away, Princeton and Yale's New Haven are easy, and the Hudson line runs to the Gilded Age estates, Dia Beacon and the Storm King sculpture park.

Wilmington's outings are small-town days that need a car. The best is south to Southport and the ferry to car-free Bald Head Island, stopping at the Fort Fisher earthworks on the way. New Bern and Beaufort are longer drives north.

New York has more to keep children busy, with the dinosaur halls and planetarium at the Natural History museum, the Bronx Zoo, the aircraft carrier on the Hudson and the free Staten Island Ferry. The downsides are subway stairs with a pushchair, small hotel rooms and tiring crowds.

Wilmington is simpler, and in summer it is mostly about the beach, with Carolina Beach's boardwalk rides, the aquarium at Fort Fisher and the battleship decks for a rainy day. Beach rental houses suit families well, but every outing means loading up the car, and the summer heat is hard on small children.

New York is one of the few American cities where you never need a car. The Manhattan grid is easy to walk, the subway runs all night across four boroughs, and ferries and Citi Bikes fill the gaps, despite the confusing map and weekend rerouting.

Wilmington's riverwalk and historic district are pleasant on foot, but that is where walking ends. The beaches are 15km or more away and the buses are of little use to visitors, so plan on hiring a car.

New York is a destination for shopping in its own right. It has flagship stores on Fifth Avenue, luxury houses on Madison Avenue, the great department stores and fashion brands in SoHo's cast-iron buildings, plus vintage clothes and records in Williamsburg and specialist shops for books, sneakers and cameras.

Wilmington offers a pleasant browse rather than a reason to travel. Front Street and the Cotton Exchange have independent boutiques, galleries and antiques, and the beach towns sell surf wear. For anything mainstream you would head out to suburban shopping centres.

Neither city is cheap, and in both a restaurant bill carries tax and a tip on top. New York is in another league for cost, though: small hotel rooms are expensive all year, and theatre and observation decks are steep. The saving graces are cheap slices and carts, a flat subway fare, free parks and the free ferry.

Wilmington costs noticeably less, especially outside summer, when city hotels are reasonable and casual seafood is fair value. Beach rentals climb in high season, and a hire car is an extra cost that New York does not have.

New York is hard to match for performance anywhere. Broadway and Off-Broadway, the Met Opera, City Ballet and the Philharmonic at Lincoln Center, the orchestras at Carnegie Hall and the jazz rooms of the Village and Harlem mean a different show every night for as long as you stay.

Wilmington's scene is lively for a city its size. It centres on Thalian Hall, a restored opera house, with summer concerts by Greenfield Lake and long-running jazz and blues festivals. It is something to fit around a beach week, not to plan a trip around.

New York gives you more ways to unwind deliberately, even though the city itself is anything but restful. There is a century-old Russian and Turkish bathhouse in the East Village, banyas in Brighton Beach and big Korean spas a short trip away, and the Cloisters gardens or a harbour ferry give you quiet between outings.

Wilmington has no bathing tradition, only day spas, resort spas and yoga studios. Its strength is the pace: calm evenings on the riverfront and an easy off-season slowness, which some travellers will find more restful than any steam room.