Virginia Beach or West Palm Beach?

Both are true beach destinations, but the beaches work differently. Virginia Beach has one continuous strip of pale sand along the Oceanfront, with the boardwalk right behind it, surfing by the fishing pier, calmer water at the north end and on the bay, and dunes and beach houses at Sandbridge. You step out of the hotel onto the sand, but only for about five months of the year.

In West Palm Beach you cross the lagoon to reach the sea: Midtown Beach and Phipps Ocean Park on Palm Beach, or the broader and quieter sand of Singer Island and Juno. What it adds is the Gulf Stream's warmth, which makes swimming possible all year, and Peanut Island's sheltered water for snorkelling. The trade-offs are seaweed on some late-summer days and rough surf in storm season.

West Palm Beach has more range. Clematis Street and Rosemary Square have waterfront terraces and grill rooms, Northwood is more relaxed, Palm Beach has formal dining rooms, and the Cuban and Haitian bakeries and lunch counters away from the centre add flavours that Virginia Beach lacks. Stone crab and grilled grouper are the local highlights.

Virginia Beach's food is good mainly for its seafood: Lynnhaven oysters and Chesapeake blue crab, at their best at the dockside places by the inlet rather than among the chains and pancake houses of the strip. Neither city is a food destination, but in Virginia Beach you will often end up driving to Norfolk for variety.

West Palm Beach has the more rewarding sights. The Norton Museum's Chinese art and European painting, the Flagler Museum in the marble rooms of Whitehall and an afternoon among the Mediterranean Revival villas of Palm Beach fill two or three good days.

Virginia Beach's history is older but there is less of it to see: the 1607 landing site at Cape Henry with its 18th-century lighthouse, the brick Adam Thoroughgood House and the King Neptune statue on the boardwalk. That is half a day, and most of the region's colonial history lies up the peninsula.

Neither is a serious night-out city, and the two are busy in opposite seasons. Virginia Beach peaks in summer, with loud, casual beach bars and rooftop decks along Atlantic Avenue full of vacationers and sailors. Town Center has its lounges, and Norfolk has more character.

West Palm Beach's evenings are more grown-up: cocktail bars and a couple of dance spots on Clematis Street at weekends, mostly in the winter season. Palm Beach goes to bed early, and real clubbing means going down to Miami.

Both are flat coastal country with plenty to do outdoors, but the best of it is on land in one city and underwater in the other. Virginia Beach has the maritime forest and cypress swamp of First Landing, the empty barrier spit of Back Bay and False Cape, kayak trips out to the dolphins, a long surfing tradition and waterfowl in winter.

West Palm Beach's highlight is in the water: the shore dive under the Blue Heron Bridge, with its seahorses and octopus, and Gulf Stream reefs a short boat ride out. Inland, Grassy Waters and the Loxahatchee refuge give a taste of the Everglades, with alligators, and sea turtles nest on the beaches to the north.

Virginia Beach has the stronger day out. Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown are about an hour away and tell the American story from the first settlement to the end of the Revolution. Kitty Hawk, where the Wright brothers flew, and the battleship and museums of Norfolk add further variety. Almost all of it needs a car.

West Palm Beach has the easier big trip, Miami by fast train, with South Beach, Little Havana and Wynwood. Beyond that, Delray, Boca Raton and Jupiter are pleasant, but they are more coastal towns much like the one you are staying in.

Virginia Beach is built for families. The Virginia Aquarium, the water park, mini-golf and bike rentals on the boardwalk fill the days at the resort. The amusement park near Williamsburg and the hands-on trades of Colonial Williamsburg are within an hour.

West Palm Beach is pleasant with children, and its highlights are animals: the drive-through Lion Country Safari, the zoo and the winter manatees at Manatee Lagoon, with Peanut Island's calm water for swimming. It has no big theme park, and Orlando is a long drive away.

You will want a car in both, but West Palm Beach is easier without one. Its downtown is compact and walkable, with a free trolley linking the waterfront, Clematis Street and Rosemary Square, and fast trains run to Fort Lauderdale and Miami. Palm Beach is an easy bike ride over the bridges.

In Virginia Beach the walkable part is the Oceanfront and its boardwalk, with a summer trolley. Everything else, from Sandbridge to Town Center to First Landing, is spread across suburban highways, and summer traffic into the resort can be slow.

This is where the two differ most. West Palm Beach has Worth Avenue, a palm-lined street of jewellery and fashion houses whose Mediterranean-style vias are worth walking even if you buy nothing. It also has designer resale shops and the antique dealers along South Dixie Highway.

Virginia Beach offers a regional mall, the national chains of Town Center and a long run of T-shirt shops. The exception is its surf shops, which come from a real local surfing culture.

Virginia Beach is the cheaper of the two, though neither is a bargain once you add a hire car and tips. Its prices peak in summer, and the same oceanfront rooms fall sharply once the season ends.

West Palm Beach is expensive in its winter season, when Palm Beach hotels are among the dearest on the coast and even downtown charges high rates. The cheaper months are summer, so the low prices come with heat and storms rather than a quiet, mild shoulder season.

West Palm Beach offers far more on stage. The Kravis Center brings touring Broadway shows, orchestras and the Palm Beach Opera, Palm Beach Dramaworks puts on serious plays, and the Society of the Four Arts adds concerts, mostly between late autumn and spring.

In Virginia Beach itself the offer is summer rock and country at the amphitheatre and free boardwalk concerts. For the Virginia Opera, the Symphony or the spring arts festival, you go to Norfolk.

Neither has a bathing tradition, but West Palm Beach makes it easier to unwind. Its large resort spas on Palm Beach and the many smaller day spas around the area serve a comfortable crowd, and the island's slow, manicured pace and lagoon-side promenades do the rest.

Virginia Beach has spas in its bigger oceanfront hotels and a few day spas out in the suburbs, but fewer of them and more spread out. Its calm comes at dawn on the boardwalk and in spring and autumn. In high summer the resort is crowded and loud.