Bar Harbor or Bethany Beach?

These are two very different coasts. Bar Harbor's shore is pink granite and the sea stays bracing all summer, so people go to Sand Beach in Acadia more to look than to swim. The swimming people actually enjoy is in Echo Lake and Lake Wood.

Bethany Beach is built around its sand: a wide, guarded strip in front of the boardwalk and water warm enough for long swims in high summer. The quieter dunes of Delaware Seashore State Park or Fenwick Island are within half an hour, and small children can paddle in the calm Inland Bays.

Both towns serve seasonal seafood at picnic tables, and neither has much range, so the difference is in what lands on the plate. Bar Harbor means whole boiled lobster, lobster rolls, chowder and wild blueberry pie. There is also the long tradition of popovers at Jordan Pond House, plus a few more ambitious dining rooms and breweries.

At Bethany Beach the equivalent is steamed blue crabs, crab cakes and boardwalk fries, with farm-stand corn and peaches in high summer. Its advantage is Rehoboth Beach, a short drive north, where the choice of restaurants is far broader than in either town.

Bar Harbor gives a curious visitor more to do, though neither town is a sightseeing destination. The Abbe Museum's Wabanaki collections, the Gilded Age cottages along the Shore Path, the Tiffany windows of St Saviour's and the granite bridges on the carriage roads fill a rainy half-day.

Bethany Beach has its carved totem pole, a small collection on its origins as a church camp and the wartime watchtowers along the shore. For museums or historic streets you need the car.

In Bar Harbor a night out is a short walk to a pub. From Bethany Beach it means a drive. On summer evenings Bar Harbor's few taprooms and harbour-view bars around Main Street and Cottage Street fill with hikers and cruise passengers, and there is sometimes a band at the weekend. There are no clubs, though, and the town is quiet well before midnight.

Bethany Beach is proud of having no bar district at all. What it does have is neighbours. Dewey Beach's crowded beach bars, about 20 minutes north, stay open late in summer, and the bars of Ocean City are to the south, so a proper night out works as long as someone is willing to drive.

This is where Bar Harbor pulls far ahead. Acadia has mountains rising straight out of the sea, cliff routes such as the Precipice, paths along the surf past Thunder Hole, the fjord-like Somes Sound, whale and puffin cruises and the sandbar walk to Bar Island. Add autumn colour and winter skiing on the carriage roads.

Bethany Beach's outdoors is gentle and flat: paddling and crabbing on the Inland Bays, ospreys over the marsh and surf fishing at Indian River Inlet. The highlight is the wild ponies of Assateague Island, under an hour south, but summer brings humidity and mosquitoes.

Bethany Beach has the better spread of outings. Historic Lewes, the bigger resorts of Rehoboth Beach and Ocean City, Victorian Berlin and the ferry across Delaware Bay to Cape May give a week several quite different days out.

Bar Harbor's excursions mostly circle Mount Desert Island: the harbour villages and the ferry to the Cranberry Isles. Further off are Castine, Blue Hill, Stonington and Camden, which are lovely but fairly similar coastal towns at the end of long drives.

Bethany Beach is the easier family base, because the heart of a children's vacation, a guarded beach with water warm enough to swim in, is right outside the door. Crabbing, bike rides, mini-golf, free bandstand evenings and boardwalk rides a short drive away fill the rest of the week.

Bar Harbor works best for active families with children old enough to hike and cycle. It offers tide pools, junior ranger activities, the carriage roads and whale-watching boats from the town pier. Toddlers and wet days are harder, and the sea is not for playing in.

Bar Harbor is the easier place to manage without driving, at least in summer. The free Island Explorer buses run from the compact centre to Jordan Pond, Sand Beach and the trailheads, so a stay without a car is realistic. The service stops outside the main season, though, and the park roads clog at peak times.

Bethany Beach is flat and easy to walk between your rental, the sand and the shops. Even so, you need a car for groceries, most restaurants and every day trip, since there is only a seasonal coast bus and weekend traffic on the highway is heavy.

This comes down to Maine crafts against outlet malls. Bar Harbor's summer stroll along Main Street and Cottage Street turns up wooden bowls, knitwear, pottery and local paintings among the fleece and lobster souvenirs, and many of the shops close for the winter.

Bethany Beach's own row of surf shops, beach boutiques and bookshops is no bigger. About 25 minutes north, outside Rehoboth Beach, a large spread of outlet malls with the state's tax-free prices gives bargain hunters a real reason to make the drive. Antiques shops on the inland roads and the galleries of Lewes add a little more.

Both are costly in high season and come out much the same. In Bar Harbor the pressure comes from too few rooms, with motels charging resort rates through summer and the leaf season, and from extras such as lobster dinners and whale cruises. Hiking, cycling and the shuttle cost little, and island campgrounds keep a stay cheap.

Bethany Beach is a town of weekly rentals, so families or groups sharing a beach house with a kitchen get the best deal, and the lack of sales tax helps. June and September are noticeably cheaper there.

Bar Harbor has a little more to go to. In summer, chamber-music festivals fill churches and halls around Mount Desert Island, and the 1932 art deco Criterion Theatre on Cottage Street shows films and hosts touring acts.

Bethany Beach's live music is the free bandstand by the boardwalk, where cover bands and brass groups play on summer evenings to families on blankets. Beyond that there is only Rehoboth's community theatre and autumn jazz festival.

In both towns rest means calm rather than treatments, since neither has a spa tradition. In Bar Harbor that means a porch over Frenchman Bay and the slow, tidal pace of an emptied town in June or late autumn, though in high summer you have to get away from the crowds to find it.

Bethany Beach offers leafy residential streets, an evening boardwalk with only the surf for noise and near-silence in spring and autumn. It suits reading, sleeping and long walks on the beach.