Orlando or Virginia Beach?

Virginia Beach is built around its beach. A broad strip of pale sand runs along the Oceanfront, with the boardwalk behind it and lifeguards on the main stretch. The calmer Chesapeake Bay beaches near First Landing suit small children, and Sandbridge has dunes and rental houses instead of hotel towers.

Orlando is inland. Cocoa Beach and New Smyrna Beach are fine Atlantic strands about an hour away, and the Gulf is roughly two hours away. Most of the swimming on an Orlando trip happens in hotel pools and water parks.

Orlando has the wider range, if you are willing to drive to it. The Vietnamese and other Asian kitchens of Mills 50, the chef-led restaurants of Winter Park and Audubon Park, and Epcot's World Showcase for grazing inside the parks all offer more variety than a beach resort can.

Virginia Beach has one clear strength: seafood. Lynnhaven oysters and Chesapeake blue crab, served as crab cakes or she-crab soup, are best at the dockside places by the inlet. Beyond that, the Oceanfront relies on chains and buffets.

Neither city is a cultural destination, but Virginia Beach has a little more history on the ground. Cape Henry marks where English colonists landed in 1607, and the Old Cape Henry Lighthouse and the Adam Thoroughgood House show the colonial past within the city itself.

Orlando's highlight is a single museum. The Morse Museum in Winter Park holds Tiffany's chapel and the largest collection of his work anywhere. The rest is a slow afternoon in Loch Haven Park in a city with almost no old buildings.

The two are fairly level, but the nights are different in character. Orlando runs all year and has proper clubs: downtown along Orange Avenue fills late at weekends with a university crowd, and Ivanhoe Village has a relaxed gay scene. The resort districts offer easy themed bars that close early.

Virginia Beach is a summer beach-bar town. It has rooftop decks and sports bars on Atlantic Avenue, with a loud, good-natured crowd that includes sailors from the navy bases. Out of season it goes quiet, and anyone wanting more character drives to Norfolk.

Virginia Beach has more outdoor life within reach of the hotel. There are maritime forest and dune trails at First Landing State Park, and you can walk or cycle the empty barrier spit of Back Bay and False Cape. In summer there are kayak trips to see dolphins and surfing on a long-established break.

Orlando's nature is freshwater. You can kayak at Wekiwa Springs, see manatees at Blue Spring in winter and ride an airboat past alligators. The best birding is at Merritt Island, out on the coast. Summer heat limits all of it to early mornings.

Both cities need a car for their day trips. Virginia Beach has the edge because the Historic Triangle is about an hour away: Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown together make a very strong history day. Norfolk's battleship and waterfront are closer still, and the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk is a longer drive south.

Orlando's best day out is the Kennedy Space Center, where you might see a launch. Old Spanish St Augustine and the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg are each a fuller day's drive.

Orlando is in a league of its own for children. Walt Disney World's four theme parks and two water parks are complemented by Universal for teenagers, SeaWorld and Legoland for younger children, and resorts built so families barely need to leave.

Virginia Beach is a good family resort on a smaller scale. It has the aquarium with its sea turtles and otters, safe bay beaches for toddlers, mini-golf and bikes on the boardwalk. Williamsburg's costumed tradespeople are an hour's drive away.

Both are car cities, but in Virginia Beach a stay at the Oceanfront can be spent largely on foot. You can walk or cycle along the boardwalk, and a summer trolley runs along Atlantic Avenue. You only need to drive to reach Sandbridge, First Landing or Town Center.

Orlando spreads along Interstate 4, with parks, hotels and downtown many miles apart, and the streets are hostile to walkers. The exception is staying inside Disney or Universal, where monorails, boats and gondolas replace the car.

Orlando is a genuine shopping destination, especially for visitors from abroad hunting American and designer brands. It has the outlet centres on International Drive and Vineland Avenue, the Mall at Millenia for luxury labels, and Park Avenue in Winter Park for something gentler.

Virginia Beach offers ordinary suburban shopping: a regional mall and the chain stores of Town Center. The surf shops along the Oceanfront are the one thing with local roots.

Overall costs are similar, but they come from different places. In Orlando, hotel rooms off-site in Kissimmee or along International Drive are fair value. The money goes on multi-day park tickets, express passes, parking and meals in the parks.

In Virginia Beach the main attractions are free: the beach, the boardwalk and the state parks. Here it is the rooms that cost a lot in summer and drop sharply out of season, so the timing of your trip matters more than what you choose to do.

Orlando's stages are indoors and open all year. Touring Broadway productions and the Orlando Philharmonic play at the Dr. Phillips Center, Orlando Shakespeare Theater performs in Loch Haven Park, and the Fringe takes over in spring. Inside the parks, polished stage shows and fireworks fill the evenings.

Virginia Beach offers about as much, but most of it happens outdoors in summer: rock and country tours at the amphitheatre and free concerts on the boardwalk stages. Opera, symphony and the spring arts festival are in Norfolk, half an hour's drive away.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, and rest comes in different forms. In Orlando it means recovery days between parks at resort spas, lazy rivers and landscaped pools, or a quieter stay among the lakes of Winter Park.

In Virginia Beach calm depends on timing more than facilities: early mornings on the boardwalk and the empty shoulder seasons. High summer is crowded and loud.