Rehoboth Beach or Williamsburg, Virginia?

On a beach vacation the two are hardly comparable. Rehoboth is a beach town first: a long pale strip in front of the boardwalk, wilder sand at Cape Henlopen and Delaware Seashore, and a whole day arranged around the sea.

Williamsburg sits inland between two rivers. Its swimming means the small calm strip at Yorktown, Buckroe Beach on the Chesapeake or a drive of about an hour to Virginia Beach. The bay there does get warmer than the Delaware surf, but in high summer it can bring sea nettles, so most visitors swim in the hotel pool.

Rehoboth eats better, largely because generations of Washington summer visitors have supported chef-led restaurants along Rehoboth Avenue. Add steamed blue crabs, raw bars, vinegar-soaked boardwalk fries and a serious craft beer scene with a famous brewery born in town.

Williamsburg's strengths are simpler and more Southern: ham biscuits, peanut soup, Brunswick stew and bay oysters in season. Its candlelit colonial taverns are more about the setting than the cooking, and Richmond Road is mostly pancake houses and chains. A few bistros around Merchants Square raise the standard.

This is where Williamsburg pulls far ahead. Duke of Gloucester Street links the reconstructed Capitol to the Wren Building, past Bruton Parish Church and the taverns, with costumed blacksmiths and printers at work and the Governor's Palace at the end of its green. The art museums add fine American folk and decorative art, and the whole place repays two or three days.

Rehoboth's past as a Methodist camp meeting survives in a few shaded streets and cottages. Beyond those, the Rehoboth Art League's garden galleries are the main stop, and history-minded visitors usually drive to Lewes.

Rehoboth has a real night scene, Williamsburg barely one. Rehoboth's long standing as an LGBTQ resort fills the bars, piano lounges and drag nights around Baltimore Avenue, and Dewey Beach next door supplies loud deck bars for a younger crowd, though all of it shrinks once summer ends.

In Williamsburg, students fill a few pubs near the college in term time and there are taprooms on the edge of town. Visitors who want more than a ghost walk drive to Norfolk or Richmond.

Both sit in flat, low coastal country, but Rehoboth's version has more to do. Cape Henlopen's tall dunes and Gordons Pond trail, kayaking and sailing on the inland bays, dolphins offshore and the wild ponies of Assateague give it a varied outdoors with the sea at its centre.

Williamsburg's Tidewater is quieter and more wooded. The traffic-free Colonial Parkway and the Virginia Capital Trail are excellent for cycling, and paddlers on the Chickahominy may see bald eagles and ospreys. Summer heat and mosquitoes push most outdoor plans into spring and autumn.

Williamsburg has the stronger set of outings because the Historic Triangle is on its doorstep. Jamestown's dig and replica ships, the Yorktown battlefield, the James River plantations and Richmond's capitol and Civil War sites all fit easily into single days.

Rehoboth's best trip is Lewes, ten minutes away, with the ferry on to Victorian Cape May as a fuller day. Ocean City's bigger boardwalk and Berlin's main street round out an agreeable but lighter list. Either way, you need a car.

Both are classic family destinations, but Williamsburg offers children more variety. Busch Gardens has thrill coasters and rides for small children, Water Country USA is next door, and the living history lets children march with the fife and drum or climb aboard ships at Jamestown.

Rehoboth's appeal is simpler: the gentle old rides of Funland, lifeguarded sand steps from the rental house and calm bay water at Cape Henlopen for toddlers. It suits younger families, especially those who would rather stay put than drive between attractions.

Once you have arrived, Rehoboth is easier. Beach, boardwalk and downtown sit close together on a flat grid, bikes go everywhere, the trail runs on to Lewes and a seasonal trolley reaches Dewey and the outlets. Getting there is the hard part, on a congested summer highway with scarce parking at the end.

Williamsburg's walkable core is small, about twenty minutes from end to end with Duke of Gloucester Street closed to cars by day. Everything else sprawls along highways that buses barely serve. It does have an Amtrak station, which Rehoboth lacks, but nearly everyone drives.

Each town has a big outlet centre on its main road, so the difference lies elsewhere. In Rehoboth, Delaware's lack of sales tax makes the outlets a draw from several states, and downtown has more independent boutiques, galleries and bookshops.

In Williamsburg, the shopping worth seeking out is colonial: pewter, silver, pottery and hand-printed books made in eighteenth-century styles, plus the long-established pottery and homeware store on Richmond Road. Neither town has luxury shopping.

Williamsburg is the easier place to keep costs down, mainly because rooms are plentiful. Motels, chain hotels and condos line the main roads and are reasonably priced outside peak weeks. The real expense is admission tickets, so the combination passes matter.

Rehoboth charges resort premiums for summer rooms near the beach, and parking adds up. On the other hand, the beach costs nothing, shopping is tax-free and prices drop steeply in spring and autumn.

Neither offers much on stage, and what each has reflects the town. In Rehoboth that means free summer concerts at the bandstand, cabaret and musicals from a small local company, piano bars and an autumn film festival. Williamsburg has candlelit eighteenth-century recitals, period theatre, fife-and-drum corps and college performances in term time, and serious concerts are a drive to Norfolk or Richmond.

Neither town has a bathing tradition, so the calm comes from pace rather than spas. Rehoboth is most restful in June, September and on autumn weekends, with an empty boardwalk and bike rides under the pines. Williamsburg offers riverside golf-resort spas on the James, early walks across the quiet colonial greens and slow drives along the wooded parkway.