Virginia Beach or Ocean City, Maryland?

Both have long, wide Atlantic beaches with lifeguards and a short summer swimming season, so the difference is in their shape. Ocean City is one unbroken strip of about 16km, with a way onto the sand at the end of nearly every street. When the blocks by the boardwalk fill up you simply move north, or drive to the dune-backed wilderness of Assateague.

Virginia Beach offers more kinds of water. Surfers gather by the fishing pier on the Oceanfront, the Chesapeake Bay beaches near First Landing have calm shallows for small children, and at Sandbridge dunes and rental houses replace the hotel towers.

Neither is a food destination, and both centre on blue crab with Old Bay. In Ocean City the meal to plan around is a crab feast at a table covered in brown paper, with the boardwalk's vinegar fries, caramel popcorn and frozen custard in between. Outside summer, many of its kitchens cut back.

Virginia Beach's pride is the Lynnhaven oyster, and its best seafood is served at dockside places around the inlet and the bay rather than on the resort strip. Town Center adds some polish, and Norfolk, half an hour away, fills the gaps for anyone who wants more range.

Neither is a sightseeing city, but Virginia Beach has more to show. At Cape Henry you stand where English colonists first came ashore in 1607, beside a lighthouse completed in 1792, and the Adam Thoroughgood House is a real colonial survivor. In Ocean City the heritage is the boardwalk itself, with its old hotels and piers, an early twentieth-century carousel and the Life-Saving Station Museum, which together fill a morning at most.

Ocean City has the bigger night out. Its open-air bayside bars, with sand floors and sunset crowds, and the long run of dance and sports bars on the Coastal Highway make a real summer party scene, and the boardwalk is loud and young after dark, especially in early June.

Atlantic Avenue in Virginia Beach is busy too, with rooftop decks and a crowd of vacationers and sailors, but the scene is smaller and more casual. What it has instead is the quieter cocktail lounges of Town Center and the bars of Norfolk's Ghent half an hour away. Winter evenings are very quiet in both.

Virginia Beach has somewhat more to do outdoors. The trails in First Landing State Park run through cypress swamp and maritime forest, Back Bay and False Cape protect a long, empty spit that you reach by bike or on foot, and in summer kayak trips go out to watch dolphins. The city also has a long surfing tradition.

Ocean City's highlight is Assateague, where wild ponies graze among the dunes and marsh and kayak routes run through the back bays. It is also the better base for offshore sport fishing, with its marlin tournaments. Both lie on flat, open coast with no hills.

Virginia Beach is well ahead here. Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown are about an hour away and together make a full day of American history. Norfolk's battleship and art museum are closer still, and Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks is within reach.

The outings from Ocean City are gentler: the old main streets of Berlin and Snow Hill, the pony village of Chincoteague, the restaurants of Rehoboth Beach and the ferry from Lewes to Victorian Cape May. They are pleasant rather than essential, and no big city is close.

Both work very well with children, in different ways. Ocean City is the more classic seaside funfair, with two amusement parks on the boardwalk, arcades, go-karts and mini-golf every few blocks, and condo rentals that make a long stay easy. Graduating teenagers do crowd parts of town in early June.

Virginia Beach puts more weight on learning. It has the Virginia Aquarium with its sea turtles and marsh trail and bay beaches gentle enough for toddlers, and Colonial Williamsburg and a large themed amusement park are about an hour away. Expect to drive more to reach it all.

Both need a car, but Ocean City is easier once you arrive. On its narrow strip a summer bus runs the length of the Coastal Highway, a tram rolls along the boardwalk, and the beach is a few minutes from almost any street.

In Virginia Beach you can walk only along the Oceanfront, where a summer trolley runs on Atlantic Avenue. Beyond it the city spreads into suburban highways with sparse buses, so getting to Sandbridge, First Landing or Town Center means driving.

Virginia Beach has more choice, though mostly of national chains: a large regional mall, the outdoor streets of Town Center and surf shops with deep local roots. Ocean City has boardwalk souvenirs, taffy and fudge, beachwear in the bayside villages and an outlet centre across the bridge. Neither has luxury shopping or much local craft.

Costs are much the same: oceanfront rooms on summer weekends are expensive in both, and prices drop outside high season. Ocean City has more ways to cut the bill once you are there, such as older motels a few blocks back, condos shared by a group and the cheap town bus. In Virginia Beach the free beach and state parks help, but the car you need for almost everything adds to the total.

Virginia Beach is clearly the better place to see a show. A large outdoor amphitheatre brings touring rock and country acts in summer, and Town Center has a performing arts centre. Norfolk, half an hour away, has the Virginia Opera, the Virginia Symphony and the Virginia Arts Festival each spring.

Ocean City has touring comedians and tribute bands at the convention centre theatre, free concerts at the boardwalk bandstand and cover bands in the bars, and little more.

Ocean City offers less for a restful stay. Treatments come down to a few hotel and independent day spas, and summer brings traffic, crowded boardwalk evenings and late bar crowds. Calm means renting in the quiet condo stretches at the northern end in the shoulder months and taking an early walk on an empty beach.

Virginia Beach is somewhat better for unwinding, with spas in its larger oceanfront hotels and a few more in the suburbs. The boardwalk is peaceful early in the morning, and spring and autumn are quiet, though high summer is just as crowded and loud here.