Cotswolds or Lake District?

Neither region is a beach destination. The Lake District comes closer, because its lakes and tarns are part of the trip. You can swim in the shallows of Buttermere or Ullswater on a calm summer day, starting from a shingle shore or a jetty, and the empty Cumbrian beaches are good for a walk.

In the Cotswolds the swimming is mostly at the gravel-pit lakes of the Water Park near Cirencester, which have a sandy lake beach. The Severn Estuary's mudflats and fast tides are for walking, not swimming. In both places the water is cold, so a swim is something you do on the side rather than a reason to go.

Both regions eat best in country pubs with open fires, and in both the good cooking sits at the top end, with little in between. The Cotswolds have farmers' markets in Stroud and Cirencester, cream teas, and Cheltenham, which offers the widest range of restaurants and other cuisines in either region.

The Lake District has more food that belongs to it: Herdwick lamb, Cumberland sausage, Grasmere gingerbread, Kendal mint cake and Cartmel's sticky toffee pudding. Its serious country-house cooking is found in the southern Lakes, around Cartmel and Windermere.

The Cotswolds have much more to see. The honey-coloured villages themselves are the main sight, from Chipping Campden's High Street to Arlington Row at Bibury. Add the wool churches of Northleach and Fairford, Blenheim Palace, Sudeley Castle and the Roman villa at Chedworth, and you have days of visiting.

The Lake District's heritage is literary and smaller in scale: Wordsworth's Dove Cottage, Beatrix Potter's Hill Top and Ruskin's Brantwood, plus Castlerigg stone circle and the Roman fort on Hardknott Pass. Each takes an hour or two and they are spread across separate valleys. Here the farmed landscape is the real monument.

Both regions are quiet after dark, and the evening ends in a pub by the fire. The difference is that the Cotswolds have Cheltenham, which has cocktail bars and late venues around the Promenade and Montpellier. In the Lakes, the most you will find is a few livelier bars in Ambleside, Keswick or Bowness in summer, among walkers planning an early start.

The Lake District is in another league for the outdoors. England's highest fells rise steeply above glacial lakes, and routes such as the Fairfield Horseshoe and the Langdale Pikes are serious mountain days. Wasdale and Ennerdale feel genuinely wild, and the lakes are made for sailing and paddling. The price is rough ground and weather that turns quickly.

The Cotswolds offer gentler pleasures: rolling wolds, beech woods and small river valleys. The best views come from the western escarpment, which the Cotswold Way follows for about 164km. Walking from village to village and spring bluebells make for lovely days, but nothing here is dramatic.

The Cotswolds have the better day trips by a long way. Oxford, Bath, Stratford-upon-Avon and Warwick all lie on the edge of the region, with Gloucester Cathedral, Tewkesbury Abbey, Worcester and Bristol not much further. Several of these can be reached by train.

The Lake District's outings are more modest. Inside the region there are market towns such as Kendal and Cartmel and the Ravenglass steam railway. Beyond it, Carlisle, Hadrian's Wall and the Yorkshire Dales make good days out, but they are further apart, and almost all of them need a car.

Both regions suit a calm family trip, but they appeal to different children. The Cotswolds have more ready-made attractions: rhinos and giraffes at the Wildlife Park near Burford, the model village at Bourton-on-the-Water, lambing at farm parks and, close by, Warwick Castle.

The Lake District is better for active children. They can ride the lake steamers and the Eskdale railway, walk round Tarn Hows, and older ones can try ghyll scrambling or canoeing. On wet days, though, it has fewer indoor options to fall back on.

Getting around is about as easy in one as in the other, but in different ways. In the Cotswolds the villages are close together, yet a car is close to essential, because rural buses are sparse. Walking the footpaths between neighbouring villages is the best way to travel.

The central Lakes are easier without a car. Trains run to Windermere, buses link Ambleside, Grasmere and Keswick, and lake steamers cross the water. The western valleys, by contrast, mean driving the steep Hardknott and Wrynose passes.

The Cotswolds are much the better place to shop. Tetbury and Stow-on-the-Wold are full of antique dealers, Burford and Broadway have galleries and homeware shops, and Cheltenham's Regency arcades and Montpellier boutiques give the region a proper town for shopping.

In the Lake District, shopping mostly means outdoor gear in Ambleside and Keswick, plus Herdwick wool, slate crafts and gingerbread to take home.

Neither region is cheap, but the Lake District is easier on a budget. Its youth hostels, bunkhouses and campsites cater to walkers, and prices drop noticeably in winter. The Cotswolds are priced for comfort, with manor-house hotels and stone cottages. A group sharing a cottage, or a chain hotel in Cheltenham or near Gloucester, is the main way to keep costs down there, and the great houses and gardens each charge admission.

Cheltenham's Everyman, a Victorian playhouse, gives the Cotswolds a proper theatre with touring drama, opera and pantomime. In summer Longborough stages opera in a converted barn, with Wagner a speciality, and concerts fill the wool churches. Between them, an evening at a performance is fairly easy to arrange.

The Lake District has a smaller, simpler offer. Theatre by the Lake in Keswick runs its own repertory season of plays beside Derwentwater, and Kendal's arts centre mixes theatre, music and film. Beyond those it is folk sessions in pubs, with no opera or orchestras at all.

Both regions are made for slowing down, but the Cotswolds do pampering better. Their country-house hotels have serious spas in converted barns, and Bath's rooftop thermal pool, fed by Britain's only natural hot springs, is close to the southern wolds.

In the Lake District, wellness means a lakeside hotel spa around Windermere or Ullswater after a day's walking, or a cold swim in a tarn. It has no thermal waters of its own.