Bar Harbor or Virginia Beach?

Here the two coasts have almost nothing in common. Bar Harbor's shore is pink granite, and its one sea beach, Sand Beach in Acadia, is a pretty shell-sand cove where the water is too cold for more than a gasp. Real swimming happens at Echo Lake and Lake Wood, which warm up nicely by midsummer.

Virginia Beach is a beach resort above all. Pale sand runs the length of the Oceanfront below the boardwalk, there are lifeguards along the main stretch and the Atlantic gets properly warm in August. You also get surfing by the pier, calm bay water at First Landing and dunes at Sandbridge.

Both towns eat mainly seafood, and neither offers much range beyond it, so the difference is in what lands on the plate. Bar Harbor means whole boiled lobster and lobster rolls from waterfront shacks, chowder, wild blueberry pie and the long-standing tradition of popovers at Jordan Pond House. Many kitchens close for the winter.

Virginia Beach is crab and oyster country: Lynnhaven oysters, crab cakes and she-crab soup, best eaten at dockside places around Lynnhaven Inlet rather than on the chain-heavy resort strip. Norfolk is the place to go for more variety.

Neither town is a culture destination, but Virginia Beach has a little more history of its own. Cape Henry, where English colonists first landed in 1607, and the old lighthouse give it a link to the country's beginnings, and the Adam Thoroughgood House adds a rare colonial home.

Bar Harbor's interest is narrower and more local. It has the Abbe Museum's Wabanaki collections, the Gilded Age cottages along the Shore Path, Tiffany windows at St Saviour's and the granite bridges of the carriage roads. A morning covers it.

Virginia Beach has much more going on after dark. In summer, the beach bars, rooftop decks and sports bars along Atlantic Avenue fill with vacationers and sailors, and Town Center has calmer cocktail bars. There are no real clubs, but the strip stays loud and cheerful late into the evening.

Bar Harbor offers a pint in a taproom or a harbour-view bar on Cottage Street, the odd weekend band, and an early night before sunrise on Cadillac Mountain.

Nature is Bar Harbor's great strength. Granite mountains rise straight out of the sea in Acadia, with cliff climbs such as the Precipice and the Beehive, the surf at Thunder Hole, the deep inlet of Somes Sound and some 70km of carriage roads for cycling or winter skiing. Puffin cruises and the autumn colour add to it.

Virginia Beach has a gentler, flatter kind of outdoors. You can walk through cypress swamp and maritime forest at First Landing, or cycle out along the empty barrier spit of Back Bay and False Cape. Paddling out to see dolphins and surfing are the highlights, but there are no hills to climb.

Virginia Beach has far better outings within reach. Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown together make a superb day of American history about an hour away, and Norfolk's battleship and art museum, Kitty Hawk and Richmond are all drivable.

From Bar Harbor, the outings are quiet ones. You can drive to the harbour villages around Mount Desert Island, take a small ferry to the Cranberry Isles, or make longer drives to Castine, Blue Hill, Stonington and Camden. They are pretty places, but none of them is a major sight.

Virginia Beach is built for family vacations. The aquarium with its sea turtles and otters, the water park, mini-golf, the bike rentals on the boardwalk and the shallow bay beaches cover most ages, and Colonial Williamsburg and a big theme park are within an hour.

Bar Harbor suits older, outdoorsy children best. They can explore tide pools, walk the sandbar to Bar Island, cycle the flat carriage roads and earn junior ranger badges. The sea is too cold for building a day around the beach, though, and there is not much to fall back on when it rains.

Bar Harbor is the easier place to manage without a car, at least in season. The harbour, Main Street and the Shore Path are a few minutes apart on foot, and the free Island Explorer buses reach the trailheads, Jordan Pond and the island villages. Out of season, or for trips off the island, you will need to drive.

At Virginia Beach, only the Oceanfront works on foot, by bike or on the summer trolley. Town Center, Sandbridge, First Landing and every day trip mean driving through suburban sprawl and heavy summer traffic.

Bar Harbor's shops are a summer browse for small things to take home. A few galleries sell local paintings and pottery, and turned wooden bowls and Maine knitwear are the best finds among the lobster-themed trinkets and fudge. It fills a pleasant hour after a day on the trails, but much of it shuts once the autumn visitors have gone.

Virginia Beach has more choice and keeps it open all year, though most of it is chain stores in a big mall, at Town Center and in roadside shopping centres. Surf shops near the Oceanfront give it some local character, but T-shirt stores far outnumber anything handmade. Neither town is worth the trip for shopping.

Bar Harbor is the more expensive stay. There are too few rooms for the summer and leaf-season crowds, so even plain motels charge resort rates, and lobster dinners, whale cruises and the park entry fee push the bill higher. Hiking and cycling the carriage roads cost little, and camping on the island is the surest way to keep a stay cheap.

Virginia Beach is easier on the budget. Oceanfront rooms are expensive on summer weekends, but the beach, the boardwalk and the state parks cost little or nothing, and room rates drop sharply out of season. The main extra cost is the car you will need to get around.

Virginia Beach has more live entertainment. A large amphitheatre brings touring rock and country acts in summer, there are free stages along the boardwalk and a performing arts centre at Town Center, and the Virginia Opera and Virginia Symphony play half an hour away in Norfolk.

Bar Harbor's offering is small and seasonal: chamber concerts in island churches in July and August and programmes at the 1932 art deco Criterion Theatre.

Neither place has a spa culture to speak of, and in both, rest comes from the pace of the place rather than from treatments. In Bar Harbor, it means a porch over Frenchman Bay and the stillness of June or late autumn, when the town empties. In Virginia Beach, it means a hotel spa, an early walk on the boardwalk before the crowds and the mild spring or autumn months.