Ocean City, Maryland or Williamsburg, Virginia?

At Ocean City the beach is the whole point of the stay. About 16km of soft Atlantic sand runs from the inlet to the Delaware line, there is public access at almost every street, and lifeguards watch the full length of it. If you want empty, dune-backed sand, Assateague is just to the south.

Williamsburg sits inland between two rivers, so swimming there means a small, calm strip at Yorktown, a bay beach in Hampton or the drive to Virginia Beach. Most families make do with the motel pool and one beach day, and sea nettles can spoil a swim in the bay in high summer.

Both towns serve Chesapeake crab cakes and oysters, but Ocean City makes more of a meal of it. A steamed crab feast with mallets and Old Bay is the local ritual, and the boardwalk adds vinegar fries, caramel popcorn and frozen custard from long-running family stands.

Williamsburg's cooking is more Southern: ham biscuits, peanut soup, Brunswick stew and barbecue. Merchants Square has a few decent bistros, and the colonial taverns are more about the candlelit setting than the food. Beyond that, both towns have long roads of chains and diners, and neither is a place for fine dining.

This is where the two towns differ most. Williamsburg is itself the sight: a restored eighteenth-century capital where costumed interpreters work forges and printing presses along Duke of Gloucester Street, between the Capitol, the Governor's Palace and the Wren Building at William & Mary. Its art museums add serious American folk and decorative art.

Ocean City has the Life-Saving Station Museum, an early twentieth-century carousel and the old boardwalk itself. That is about an hour's interest.

In summer Ocean City is a proper party town. There are sand-floored bars on the bayside for sunset drinks and a long run of dance and sports bars on the Coastal Highway that stay busy until closing, with a loud, young crowd on the boardwalk. It is beer and DJs rather than craft cocktails, and it mostly closes after September.

Williamsburg goes to bed early. Its evenings run to student pubs near the college in term time, a few taprooms and a ghost walk, and anyone after a real night out drives to Norfolk or Richmond.

Both sit in flat, low-lying Tidewater country, but Ocean City has more to do in it. Assateague's wild ponies, dunes and marsh trails are next door, the calm back bays suit kayaks, paddleboards and crabbing, and offshore marlin fishing has a long tradition here.

Williamsburg's outdoors is gentler and wooded. You can cycle or drive the quiet Colonial Parkway beside the James and York, ride the paved Capital Trail out of Jamestown, or paddle the Chickahominy looking for ospreys and bald eagles. Spring and autumn beat its sticky, mosquito-heavy summers.

Williamsburg sits at the centre of the Historic Triangle, so Jamestown and Yorktown are each around 20 minutes away. Behind them are the James River plantation houses, Richmond's capitol and Civil War sites, and the maritime museums around Hampton Roads.

From Ocean City the outings are smaller and quieter: Berlin's historic main street, the pony village of Chincoteague, Rehoboth's restaurants and the Lewes ferry across to Victorian Cape May. They make pleasant breaks from the beach rather than reasons to come.

Both are classic East Coast family vacations, and they are equally good at it in different ways. Ocean City gives children the beach, boardwalk amusement parks, go-karts and mini-golf, and condos with kitchens make long stays easy.

Williamsburg combines Busch Gardens' roller coasters and a water park with history children can join in: musket firings, fife-and-drum parades and replica ships to climb aboard at Jamestown. Its drawbacks are humid heat and driving between attractions. Ocean City's are traffic on peak weekends and the influx of high-school graduates in early June.

In both places you will need a car, but the walkable part looks different. Ocean City is a 16km strip along a busy highway. The boardwalk, the inlet area and the beach are easy on foot or by bike, and a summer bus and the boardwalk tram help if you stay near the sea.

Williamsburg has a compact, flat historic district you can walk end to end in about 20 minutes, with Duke of Gloucester Street closed to cars by day and a shuttle around the edge. It also has an Amtrak station, though the theme parks and the other two Triangle sites are out along the highways.

Williamsburg has the more interesting shopping. The Historic Area's shops sell pewter, silver, pottery and reproduction furniture made in eighteenth-century styles, and Merchants Square adds Virginia gifts and books in brick-fronted stores.

Ocean City's boardwalk mostly sells T-shirts, surf gear, sunglasses, taffy and fudge. Both towns have an outlet centre for mainstream brands, and neither has any luxury shopping.

Overall the two cost much the same, with ordinary American prices plus a tip, but the money goes on different things. In Ocean City the big expense is an oceanfront room on a summer weekend. The beach is free, and late May or September brings much lower rates.

In Williamsburg rooms are easy on the budget, but admission tickets to Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown and the theme parks add up, and a rental car is close to unavoidable. Combination passes help.

Williamsburg has a little more to offer, and almost all of it belongs to the period setting: candlelit eighteenth-century recitals, period theatre, the fife-and-drum corps on Duke of Gloucester Street, plus student concerts and plays at the college in term time.

Ocean City's stage is light entertainment, with touring comedians, tribute bands, free bandstand concerts on summer evenings and cover bands in the bars. Neither town has an orchestra or a serious theatre company.

Williamsburg is the easier place to unwind. The historic inn and the golf resorts on the James River have proper spas, and early mornings on the empty colonial greens or a slow drive along the Colonial Parkway have a calm that the town keeps away from its theme parks.

Ocean City in high summer is noisy until late. Its quiet comes only in the shoulder months, or with a dawn walk on the beach by the condos at the northern end.