Rehoboth Beach or Virginia Beach?

Both towns have a wide strip of pale sand with a boardwalk behind it, and both have a short swimming season. Virginia Beach gives swimmers more. Its water is a touch warmer in midsummer, there is surfing by the fishing pier, and you can choose between the calm Chesapeake Bay shore at First Landing and the dune-backed rental houses of Sandbridge.

Rehoboth's beach is smaller in scale. Its main appeal is that it lies right at the end of every downtown street, with moderate surf in front of the boardwalk. For wilder, emptier sand you go north to Cape Henlopen or south towards Delaware Seashore State Park.

The two eat about equally well, and both serve plenty of blue crab, but the strengths differ. Rehoboth's summer crowd from Washington supports more chef-led restaurants than most beach towns, concentrated around Rehoboth Avenue. A well-known Delaware craft brewery started here, and boardwalk fries and saltwater taffy add the seaside flavour.

At Virginia Beach the seafood itself is the reason to eat out: Lynnhaven oysters, she-crab soup and the day's catch at dockside places on the bay side. The Oceanfront strip leans on chains and buffets, so it pays to head inland to the inlet or into Norfolk.

Neither is a culture destination, but Virginia Beach has more history on its own ground. The memorial cross at Cape Henry marks where English colonists landed in 1607, beside the 18th-century lighthouse, and the Adam Thoroughgood House is a rare surviving colonial brick home.

Rehoboth's story is a gentler one, a Methodist camp meeting turned resort, still visible in some old cottages and shaded streets. The Rehoboth Art League's garden galleries in Henlopen Acres are its main cultural stop. For anything more you go to Lewes.

Evenings are about equally lively in the two towns, but the crowds are different. Rehoboth's nights centre on the piano lounges, drag shows and LGBTQ bars around Baltimore Avenue, a sociable scene with a long history. When you want loud deck bars full of younger visitors, Dewey Beach is a couple of miles south.

Virginia Beach goes out along Atlantic Avenue, in beach bars, rooftop decks and sports bars full of vacationers and sailors. Town Center offers quieter cocktail bars. Neither town has much of a club scene, and both quieten down after summer.

Both sit on flat coastal plain, but Virginia Beach has more room to explore. First Landing State Park has cypress swamp and maritime forest. Further south, Back Bay and False Cape protect a long, empty barrier spit that you reach on foot or by bike, with migrating waterfowl in winter. The surfing tradition adds another way to spend time on the water.

Rehoboth's outdoors is gentler and closer at hand. Cape Henlopen has the tallest dunes on this coast and the Gordons Pond trail, the Junction and Breakwater Trail runs through wetland to Lewes, and the inland bays are good for paddling. The Assateague ponies are within about an hour.

Virginia Beach has the far stronger choice of outings. The Historic Triangle of Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown lies about an hour away. Norfolk's battleship and waterfront are closer, and the Wright brothers' site at Kitty Hawk is reachable to the south.

Rehoboth's trips are pleasant, small-town outings. Lewes is ten minutes away, the ferry crosses Delaware Bay to Victorian Cape May, Ocean City has its bigger boardwalk, and Dover's colonial Green is about an hour inland. Both towns need a car for nearly every trip.

Rehoboth keeps a family vacation within walking distance. Lifeguarded sand lies steps from the rental houses, Funland's gentle rides have run on the boardwalk since the 1960s, and Cape Henlopen adds a nature centre and calm bay water for toddlers. The catch is crowded summer weekends and finding parking with a car full of beach gear.

Virginia Beach has the bigger draws, led by the Virginia Aquarium with its sea turtles, river otters and marsh trail. Within about an hour are a large theme park and water park, and Colonial Williamsburg, where children can join in with costumed tradespeople. These are spread out, so a family spends more time in the car, and the summer heat needs some planning.

Rehoboth is much easier to get around. Downtown, the boardwalk and the beach are all a short walk apart on a flat grid. Bikes are everywhere, and a seasonal trolley runs to Dewey Beach and the outlets. Getting there is harder, by car on a highway that clogs on summer weekends.

At Virginia Beach, walking and cycling work along the Oceanfront boardwalk, and a summer trolley runs on Atlantic Avenue. Beyond that the city is suburban sprawl with sparse buses. Sandbridge, First Landing and Town Center all realistically need a car.

Rehoboth is the better place to shop, helped by Delaware's lack of sales tax. Its highway outlets draw shoppers from several states. Downtown, independent boutiques, bookshops and galleries mix in among the beachwear stores.

Virginia Beach offers a regional mall, the chain-store streets of Town Center and strip centres. Its surf shops, with deep local roots, are the only real local character. Neither town has luxury shopping.

In Rehoboth most of the budget goes on the room. High-season hotels and rental houses near the beach charge steep premiums, especially at weekends. Meals cost what they do in a prosperous resort, and even central parking is metered. The lack of sales tax only helps if you go shopping.

Virginia Beach is somewhat easier on the wallet. Summer rooms there are expensive too, but the beach, boardwalk and state parks cost little or nothing. The main extra is a car, since little beyond the Oceanfront can be reached without one. In both towns, prices fall sharply once summer is over.

Virginia Beach has more live performance. A large outdoor amphitheatre brings touring rock and country acts in summer, Town Center has a performing arts centre, and the boardwalk stages host free concerts. Norfolk, half an hour away, adds the Virginia Opera, the Virginia Symphony and a spring arts festival.

Rehoboth's offer is small and local: free summer concerts at the bandstand, musicals and cabaret from a small theatre company, piano acts in the bars and an autumn film festival.

Neither town has a bathing tradition, and spas in both mean a few hotel and day spas. You go to either for the slower pace, not for treatments. The calm comes at different moments. In Rehoboth it is June, September and autumn weekends, with bike rides under the pines. At Virginia Beach it is early mornings on the boardwalk before the crowds of high summer arrive.