Bar Harbor or Cape May?

This is where the two differ most. Bar Harbor's shore is granite, and the Gulf of Maine stays cold enough in summer that most people at Sand Beach just get their feet wet. The swimming people actually enjoy is in Echo Lake, which warms up by midsummer.

Cape May is a proper beach town. A continuous strip of lifeguarded sand runs along the promenade, and by August the sea is warm enough to stay in for a long time. Cape May Point is quieter, and on the bay side you can look for quartz "Cape May diamonds" at Sunset Beach.

The two eat about equally well, and both centre on seafood, but the flavour is different. Bar Harbor is all about Maine lobster boiled in outdoor pots and eaten at picnic tables, plus wild blueberry pies and popovers at Jordan Pond House inside the park.

Cape May's busy fishing port brings scallops, flounder and local oysters, and some of the cooking is more formal, served in restored Victorian dining rooms. Long porch breakfasts and nearby vineyards are part of a stay. Both towns have summer queues, and many kitchens close in winter.

Cape May has more to see, mainly because the town itself is the sight. The whole place is a historic landmark district of gingerbread-trimmed cottages and porch-fronted hotels, and you can tour it on foot or by trolley. Add the Emlen Physick Estate and the lighthouse climb and you have a day or two of sightseeing.

Bar Harbor's culture fits into a morning. The Abbe Museum tells the story of the Wabanaki, the Shore Path passes surviving Gilded Age cottages, and St Saviour's has Tiffany windows. The hand-cut granite bridges on the carriage roads are its most memorable heritage.

Neither town is for a big night out, but Cape May has a little more going on. Its pubs and hotel bars around the pedestrian mall often have a cover band in summer, and the louder boardwalk bars of the Wildwoods are a short drive away. Bar Harbor's taprooms fill with hikers who head to bed early to catch the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain.

Bar Harbor is the stronger choice by a wide margin. Acadia gives you sea-cliff walks past Thunder Hole, steep climbs up the Precipice and the Beehive, the fjord-like Somes Sound, a sandbar you can walk across at low tide and the quieter Schoodic Peninsula. It also has some of the best autumn colour on the coast.

Cape May's outdoors is gentle and flat, but it has its own strength: it is one of North America's great migration points, where hawks and monarch butterflies pass over Cape May Point and Higbee Beach. Dolphin-watching boats, back-bay kayaking and easy cycling fill out a stay.

From Bar Harbor the outings are a string of quiet New England harbours, while Cape May puts a ferry crossing, a casino boardwalk and a major city within reach. On Mount Desert Island the easy trips are Northeast Harbor, Bass Harbor and the small boat to the Cranberry Isles. Castine, Stonington and Camden are pretty, but they are up to two hours apart by car and none of them is a major sight.

Cape May offers a little more variety. The ferry across Delaware Bay takes about an hour and a half and lands in colonial Lewes. Atlantic City is an hour up the coast, and Philadelphia, with Independence Hall, is just within reach for a long, tiring day.

Cape May is the easier choice with children. A warm, lifeguarded beach, surrey rides along the promenade, crabbing on the bay and a free county zoo nearby fill the days without much planning. For rides and arcades, the amusement piers of the Wildwoods are close by. Note that some historic-district B&Bs don't take small children.

Bar Harbor suits families who like being outdoors: tide pools, the walk to Bar Island, junior ranger activities and flat carriage-road bike rides. But the sea is too cold for real beach play, and there is little to do indoors when it rains.

Both towns are easy to walk once you arrive, but they work differently. In summer, Bar Harbor's free Island Explorer buses reach trailheads, Jordan Pond and the island villages, so you can go without a car. Out of season there is effectively no public transport, and the Park Loop Road gets congested in summer.

Cape May is flat and compact, made for bicycles, and parking is the main hassle. Getting there is the hard part: there is no passenger train, so most people drive in on the Garden State Parkway or come across on the ferry.

In both towns shopping means browsing, and what is on the shelves reflects who visits. Bar Harbor's Main Street and Cottage Street lean towards fleece, outdoor gear and lobster souvenirs, and Maine wooden bowls and knitwear are the best finds. Many shops close for the winter.

Cape May gives a browser a bit more to work with. The pedestrian Washington Street Mall adds independent clothing boutiques, bookshops and kitchen stores, and there are antique dealers scattered through the historic district. That is enough for a rainy afternoon, though not a reason to come.

Both are expensive in their peak months, but Bar Harbor is a little easier on a budget. Once you are there, hiking, cycling the carriage roads and the free shuttle cost little, and the island's campgrounds keep a stay cheap.

Cape May adds beach tags, paid parking and minimum-stay rules at its Victorian B&Bs. Many budget-minded visitors stay in the Wildwoods and come in for the day, or rent a house as a group.

Cape May is the better town for an evening out, and its resident theatre companies are what put it ahead. Bar Harbor's stage is almost entirely a July and August affair: chamber concerts in churches and halls around Mount Desert Island, films and touring acts at the Criterion Theatre, an art deco cinema from 1932, and bands in the pubs. Once summer ends there is very little to go to.

Bar Harbor depends on summer festivals and touring acts. Cape May has plays running through a long season, including historic American drama that suits its Victorian streets, so you can usually see a play during a summer stay and sometimes on a shoulder-season weekend. Its chamber music festival also comes earlier in the year, in late spring and early summer, and in July and August there are concerts in Convention Hall on the promenade.

Rest comes in a similar form in both: slow days and a massage at a larger hotel, with no spa or bathing tradition in either town. Bar Harbor's calm is a quiet porch over Frenchman Bay, best in June or after the leaves fall. Cape May offers rocking chairs on Victorian verandas, afternoon tea in guesthouse parlours and sunsets over the bay. Both are busy in high summer, so for a restful stay go in spring or autumn.