Virginia Beach offers a wider range of activities than a typical beach resort. The oceanfront is the obvious draw, but the city also has genuine natural history in First Landing State Park and serious marine science at the aquarium. The combination of Atlantic beaches, bay waters, military heritage, and protected wildlife areas makes it worth spending more than a weekend.
Most visitors gravitate to the boardwalk strip first and then discover that the rest of the city has its own rewards. The military presence is hard to miss — fighter jets from Naval Air Station Oceana regularly fly overhead — but it gives the city a certain energy and explains much of its scale.