Ocean City, Maryland or Philadelphia?

Ocean City is a beach town first and last. About 16km of soft sand has lifeguards and access at nearly every street end, so the sea is a few minutes from almost any bed. When the boardwalk blocks get crowded, the dune-backed shore of Assateague is just to the south.

Philadelphia has rivers, not surf. A beach day means driving to the Jersey Shore, which includes a different Ocean City in New Jersey, and sitting in weekend traffic with locals heading "down the shore". It makes a good summer outing, but you would not plan a stay around it.

Ocean City does one thing well: steamed blue crabs with Old Bay, crab cakes and oysters, plus vinegar fries, taffy and frozen custard on the boardwalk. That is a fine way to eat for a week at the beach. Beyond seafood, though, the choice is mostly diners and chains, and much of it scales back after summer.

Philadelphia gives a food lover much more to work with. Cheesesteaks, roast pork sandwiches and hoagies are everyday food, and Reading Terminal Market and the Italian Market are each worth a morning. East Passyunk and Fishtown add small bring-your-own-wine dining rooms, good Mexican and Vietnamese cooking and serious craft beer.

Ocean City's heritage is the boardwalk itself. Its old hotels and wooden piers, the early twentieth-century carousel and the small Life-Saving Station Museum of shipwrecks and lifeguards can all be covered in an afternoon.

Philadelphia is on another level. The country was founded here, and Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and the Georgian streets of Society Hill still show it. The Barnes Foundation, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Penn Museum are collections of real weight, and together they fill several days of sightseeing.

Both towns run on bars rather than clubs, and both close at 2am, but the mood is very different. Ocean City in summer is a party strip, with open-air bayside bars on sand floors, dance bars along the Coastal Highway and a young, loud boardwalk. Almost all of it shuts or goes quiet from October.

Philadelphia has more variety and keeps going all year. You can choose between warehouse bars and craft-beer halls in Fishtown, cocktails around Rittenhouse Square, corner taverns in East Passyunk and the long-established Gayborhood.

Neither has dramatic scenery, and their outdoors differ in kind. Ocean City's is water and marsh: wild ponies and dunes on Assateague, kayaking and paddleboarding on the calm back bays, and a long tradition of offshore sport fishing.

Philadelphia's is green and wooded. The Wissahickon gorge runs inside Fairmount Park, and the Schuylkill River Trail takes cyclists past Boathouse Row and out of town. Further out, the Pine Barrens, the Brandywine country and the Poconos offer walking and paddling.

From Ocean City the outings are small and gentle, and all need a car. There is Berlin's tidy main street, Chincoteague's ponies, Rehoboth Beach and Lewes up the coast, and the Chesapeake towns of St Michaels and Easton at the edge of a day.

Philadelphia has far more within reach. Fast trains make New York, Baltimore and Washington easy days out, and Lancaster's Amish country is about an hour away by rail. Gettysburg, Valley Forge, Longwood Gardens and Princeton add enough options to fill a second week.

Ocean City is the easier family choice in summer because it is built for children. There is a lifeguarded beach, two old boardwalk amusement parks, water parks, go-karts, mini-golf, and condos with kitchens for longer stays. The costs are crowds and traffic on peak weekends, graduating teenagers in early June, and most of it closing out of season.

Philadelphia works through museums rather than sand. The Franklin Institute, the Please Touch Museum, the dinosaur hall and the country's oldest zoo will keep children busy, and the costumed guides of Old City make history easy for older ones to grasp. It still lacks the simple daily routine of a beach.

Ocean City is a car town: a long, narrow strip split down the middle by the wide Coastal Highway. A summer bus and the boardwalk tram help only if you stay near the sea. The boardwalk and the old downtown at the inlet are pleasant to walk, but anything beyond the bridges needs a car.

In Philadelphia, most visitors can leave the car behind. Old City, Rittenhouse Square and the Parkway museums are all on foot across Center City's flat grid. SEPTA's subway, trolleys and direct airport train fill the gaps, though they are plain.

Ocean City's shopping is souvenirs, beachwear, surf gear and fudge along the boardwalk, with an outlet centre over the bridge for mainstream brands.

Philadelphia gives a shopper much more to do. There is Walnut Street around Rittenhouse Square, independent shops in Old City and Fishtown, the old diamond district on Jewelers' Row and food gifts from Reading Terminal Market. The huge King of Prussia mall is half an hour out, and there is no sales tax on clothing.

The two cost much the same overall, but you save in different places. In Ocean City the beach is free, and a condo shared among a group or a motel a few blocks back cuts the bill. Oceanfront rooms on summer weekends are expensive, and rates drop in late May and September.

In Philadelphia the founding sights are free, a cheesesteak makes a cheap lunch and bringing your own wine lowers the cost of dinner. Center City hotels and the big art museums charge full American prices.

Ocean City's stage is light entertainment: touring comedians and tribute acts at the convention centre, free concerts at the bandstand in summer and cover bands in the bars.

Philadelphia has a serious music life. The Philadelphia Orchestra plays on the Avenue of the Arts, opera and ballet fill the 1857 Academy of Music, and Curtis Institute students give recitals. The Walnut Street Theatre adds a full season of plays, and jazz clubs and indie venues in Fishtown carry on later in the evening.

Neither has a spa tradition, and both offer little more than hotel and day spas. In Ocean City, calm depends on the season: an early walk on an empty northern beach in September, never the noisy height of summer.

In Philadelphia you find calm in green corners, such as a bench in one of Penn's squares or a quiet path in the Wissahickon. For a proper soak, there are Korean-style bathhouses in the suburbs.