Bar Harbor or Salem, Massachusetts?

Neither town is a beach destination, and the sea is what differs. In Bar Harbor the Gulf of Maine stays painfully cold, so Sand Beach in Acadia is for looking at, and the swimming people actually enjoy is in freshwater at Echo Lake or Lake Wood.

Salem's water gets a few degrees warmer in high summer, but the town's own shores at Salem Willows and Winter Island are harbour edges. For real sand you have to drive to Crane Beach's dunes in Ipswich or Singing Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea.

The two eat on much the same level, and both rely on chowder and lobster rolls. Bar Harbor makes more of the setting: whole lobsters boiled outdoors and eaten at picnic tables, wild blueberry pie, and popovers at Jordan Pond House inside the park. Many kitchens close for the off-season.

Salem's food stays open all year and has a bit more variety, with bistros, brewpubs and a few international kitchens around the pedestrian streets and North Shore oysters on the menus. Serious diners from either town would still go elsewhere, and from Salem that means a short train ride to Boston.

Here Salem pulls well ahead. It covers two eras in depth: the 1692 witch trials, remembered at the Witch House and the memorial, and the merchant wealth preserved at the maritime park, the House of the Seven Gables and along Chestnut Street. The Peabody Essex Museum, with its Chinese merchant's house rebuilt inside, would be notable in a much bigger city.

Bar Harbor offers a rainy morning at the Abbe Museum on Wabanaki culture, the Gilded Age cottages along the Shore Path and the Tiffany windows at St Saviour's. It is worth seeing, but it is a side dish to the park.

Both towns are quiet well before midnight, and neither has a club. Salem has slightly more going on, with taprooms and cocktail bars in historic buildings, and its Halloween season fills the streets with costumed crowds. Bar Harbor's evenings are a summer pint with hikers and cruise passengers, and most people turn in early for sunrise on Cadillac Mountain.

This is Bar Harbor's strongest suit and the main reason to go. Acadia gives you pink-granite mountains above the sea, the fjord-like Somes Sound, cliff climbs on the Precipice and the Beehive, and about 70km of carriage roads for cycling. Puffin cruises and the quieter Schoodic Peninsula add more.

Salem's outdoors is pretty but gentle. You get headland walks at Marblehead and Halibut Point, birding on Plum Island and humpback trips from Gloucester, but no mountains within easy reach.

Salem is the far better base for excursions. Boston, Cambridge, Lexington and Concord, Cape Ann and Newburyport are all close, and much of that list can be done by train, which makes it easy to fill a week.

From Bar Harbor, outings are mostly harbour villages around Mount Desert Island, ferries to the Cranberry Isles and longer drives to Castine, Stonington or Camden. They are charming, but none of them is a major sight, and you need a car for all of them.

Bar Harbor suits families better, provided the children like being outdoors. Tide pooling, crossing the sandbar at low tide, cycling flat carriage roads and junior ranger badges keep children busy. The weak spots are a cold sea and very little to do on a wet day.

Salem is easy to manage with children and has the replica tall ship and the old arcade at Salem Willows. However, much of its draw is gallows history, which is better for older children, and October crowds make it hard work with a pushchair.

Salem is easier without a car. The centre can be crossed on foot in about twenty minutes, and the station is close by, with direct trains to Boston and up to Rockport. You only need to drive for beaches, forests and Concord.

Bar Harbor's compact downtown is also walkable, and the free Island Explorer buses make a car-free summer stay possible. Outside that season you need a car, and even in summer the loop road and trailhead car parks fill up.

Neither town is a shopping destination, but Salem has more character. Its Essex Street shops sell tarot cards, crystals and spell books, and a few antique dealers and bookshops add some quality. Bar Harbor offers fleece, fudge, balsam pillows and Maine woodwork, and most shops close in winter.

Both are costly places to stay, but the expense works differently. Bar Harbor is dear in summer and the leaf season, then cheap once most of the town has closed. Camping on the island and the free park shuttle are the main ways to save.

Salem has Boston-area room prices for most of the year, and in October beds are among the hardest to find in New England. Once you are there, a walkable town and an inexpensive train help make up for it.

Both have only a thin live scene, and each fills the gap differently. In July and August, Bar Harbor has chamber-music festivals in island churches, along with films and touring acts at the art deco Criterion Theatre. Salem has a small theatre company and October street performers, but its real advantage is the train to Boston's symphony and opera.

Bar Harbor is the more restful choice. It has a porch over Frenchman Bay, a still harbour in June or late autumn, and days that follow the tides, with massages available at the larger inns.

Salem has day spas plus crystal healers and meditation sessions that suit its spiritual side. Its quiet months are pleasant for slow walks, but in the Halloween season it is not a place to unwind.