Adirondacks or Martha's Vineyard?

The Adirondacks offer freshwater swimming. There are sandy public beaches at Lake George, the town beach on Mirror Lake and docks along the Saranac and Fulton chains, with still, clear water in high summer but no surf and little beyond rafts and picnic tables.

Martha's Vineyard gives the better beach vacation, with far more sand and a choice of shores. You get shallow, calm water along State Beach on the Sound, Atlantic breakers at South Beach in Katama and the clay cliffs at Aquinnah. Both swimming seasons are short, and on the island some of the best up-island beaches are kept for residents and renters.

Neither is a food destination, but the island eats better. Adirondack meals mean diners, maple syrup, brewpubs and trout or steak in lodge dining rooms. The widest choice is in Lake Placid and Saranac Lake, and the Champlain Valley adds orchard cider in autumn.

Martha's Vineyard has a clearer identity in its seafood: lobster rolls, fried clams, oysters from its ponds and steamed lobster eaten on the docks at Menemsha. The farm stands of West Tisbury and Chilmark add to it. Much of it closes outside summer, though, prices are high, and some up-island towns expect you to bring your own wine.

Heritage is a minor draw in both, and the two offer quite different kinds. The Adirondack sights are spread out, with long drives between them: the colonial forts at Ticonderoga and Lake George, the Adirondack Experience museum, the Gilded Age Great Camps and the Olympic venues at Lake Placid.

Martha's Vineyard keeps its history in townscapes that sit close together and are easy to walk. There are Edgartown's whaling captains' houses, the gingerbread cottages of the Oak Bluffs camp-meeting ground, the Flying Horses Carousel, the Wampanoag cliffs at Aquinnah and the African American heritage trail. Its culture fills a couple of relaxed days on foot, while the mountains reward visitors willing to drive to each stop.

Both are quiet after dark, but the island has a little more going on. Circuit Avenue in Oak Bluffs and the harbour bars of Edgartown give summer evenings some life, mostly among visitors and seasonal staff. In the Adirondacks, Lake George village with its summer bars and party boats and a few pubs in Lake Placid are the exceptions, and most evenings end by a campfire.

This is the widest gap between the two. The Adirondacks are wilderness on a large scale: forty-six High Peaks, Mount Marcy rising above the treeline, multi-day canoe routes through the St Regis Canoe Area, moose and loons, a blazing autumn, and skiing and ice climbing in winter.

Martha's Vineyard is gentle coastal country of moors, salt ponds and stone walls. It is best enjoyed by bike, by kayak or on short trails at Cedar Tree Neck, Menemsha Hills and Felix Neck. Cape Poge on Chappaquiddick and the Aquinnah cliffs are its wildest corners, but there is nothing here to climb.

The Adirondacks reach more by road. Saratoga Springs is under an hour from Lake George, and Albany's capitol and state museum are about an hour away. Ferries cross Lake Champlain towards Burlington, and Montreal is a long but feasible day from the northern lakes. Inside the park, most outings are to summits and lakes rather than towns.

From Martha's Vineyard the outings depend on boats. Nantucket's whaling town and New Bedford's historic district are the highlights, with Woods Hole, Falmouth and Sandwich on Cape Cod. Most of those crossings run only from late spring to early autumn, so in the off-season the island's own towns are most of what is on offer.

Theme parks, water parks and an Olympic bobsled give Adirondack children far more to do than the island can offer. Lake George has a large theme park and water park, paddle steamers and fort re-enactments, Old Forge has a water park of its own, and the Wild Center in Tupper Lake has a treetop walkway built for children. The cost is long drives between them, and High Peaks trails are too steep and long for many young legs.

The Vineyard suits younger children on a simple beach summer, with calm water at State Beach, the Flying Horses Carousel, crabbing off the docks and flat bike paths between the towns. It has no large attraction for a rainy day, and both the ferry crossing and the hunt for a rental house take planning.

The island is easier to manage without a car. Vineyard Haven, Oak Bluffs and Edgartown are walkable and linked by buses and bike paths, and many visitors leave their car on the mainland. The up-island roads are slow in high summer, and the ferry is part of every arrival.

In the Adirondacks a car is unavoidable. Distances are long, two-lane roads wind through forest, and the train along Lake Champlain and the few buses never reach trailheads or lakes. Only Lake Placid and Lake George village work on foot once you are there.

Shopping is a sideline in both, and the island is a little stronger. Edgartown's boutiques and galleries and the bookshops of Vineyard Haven make a pleasant afternoon, and island-branded clothing has become a souvenir in its own right. The Adirondacks have outdoor-gear shops in Lake Placid and an outlet strip near Lake George, but their better buys are rustic: twig furniture, pack baskets, balsam pillows and maple syrup.

The Adirondacks are the cheaper choice by a wide margin. Resort prices are mostly confined to Lake Placid and the Lake George waterfront, and staying in the quieter lake towns further into the park brings costs down a long way. Cabins do book up early for summer and the foliage weeks.

Martha's Vineyard in summer is very expensive at every level. Rental houses go by the week, meals are costly even at seafood shacks, and the ferry adds to the bill, especially with a car. Bikes, buses and picnics from farm stands soften it, and late spring or autumn costs less, but no July week on the island comes cheap.

The Adirondacks have the edge for a proper evening of music, largely because the open-air amphitheatre at Saratoga Springs, with summer seasons of orchestral music and ballet, is an evening's drive from the southern lakes. Within the park, a long-running summer opera programme near Schroon Lake trains young singers, chamber festivals fill lakeside churches around Lake George, and Lake Placid has an arts centre with concerts and touring shows.

The Vineyard's offer is smaller and more casual: concerts and community sing-alongs at the Oak Bluffs Tabernacle, a small playhouse in Vineyard Haven and bar bands on summer nights, with no opera or orchestra. In both places performances are a July and August affair, and outside those months little is on.

Both restore you through their pace rather than their spas, and neither has a bathing tradition. In the Adirondacks the stillness comes from lakes and forest: a porch over the water, a canoe at dawn and the mountain air that once drew patients to Saranac Lake, with the mineral baths of Saratoga Springs just to the south.

On Martha's Vineyard, calm means up-island lanes, farm stands and long evenings around Chilmark and Aquinnah, and it is at its best around September, away from the summer traffic of Edgartown and Oak Bluffs. The island has a few more inn spas and yoga classes, while the mountains offer more solitude.