Hakone or Nikko?

Neither town is a place to swim, but Hakone at least has the sea within reach. Atami's sheltered sand is under an hour away and makes a decent summer outing, even if the shore at Odawara is pebbly and rough.

From Nikko the coast is hours away, and its highland lakes are for boats and fishing, so in summer you cool off in a hotel pool or not at all.

In both towns the best meal is the long dinner at your inn, and outside it the choice is thin and closes early. Hakone leans on kaiseki of mountain vegetables and river fish, with soba, tofu and Odawara fish cake on Yumoto's main street and black eggs boiled at Owakudani.

Nikko's signature is yuba, the soy-milk skin of its temple vegetarian tradition, served in a dozen forms along the road up to the shrines. It is the more distinctive local dish of the two, but there is even less beyond it once the lunchtime crowd has gone.

This is where Nikko pulls well clear. Toshogu, Rinnoji, Futarasan and Taiyuinbyo form a compact, UNESCO-listed group of richly carved and gilded buildings in cedar forest, and they deserve a full day or two on their own. The Shinkyo bridge and the Jizo statues of Kanmangafuchi add to it.

Hakone's strength is art rather than monuments: sculpture across the lawns of the Open-Air Museum, Impressionists at the Pola, and smaller collections of glass and prints. Its history, the stone Tokaido road and the rebuilt checkpoint, is pleasant to walk but slight beside Nikko's shrines.

Both go to bed early, and that is part of the appeal. Hakone-Yumoto keeps a handful of izakaya open a little later, while Nikko's equivalent is a few bars and hotel lounges down in Kinugawa Onsen. For anything more, it is Tokyo from either.

Both are fine mountain landscapes in national parks, but they feel different. Hakone is a volcanic caldera: steaming sulphur slopes at Owakudani, Lake Ashi on the crater floor and Fuji on the skyline when the mist allows, with ridge walks to Kintoki and pampas grass at Sengokuhara.

Nikko climbs higher and offers more variety. Kegon Falls drops from Lake Chuzenji, boardwalks cross the Senjogahara marsh to more waterfalls, Nantai and Shirane are real climbs, and the Kinugawa gorge has rafting. In winter it adds snow, frozen falls and small ski slopes.

Hakone is the better base for days out. Kamakura's Great Buddha and temples, the port of Yokohama, Odawara's castle, the Izu Peninsula and the Fuji lakes are all within a day, and the Romancecar has you in Tokyo in under two hours.

Nikko has Tokyo at a similar distance, plus gyoza in Utsunomiya and the pottery kilns of Mashiko. Ouchi-juku's thatched post town is a long day, and beyond these the choice is mostly more mountains and lakes.

Hakone gives children more to do. The chain of railway, cable car, ropeway and pirate ship is the attraction, and the seal shows at Hakone-en, the climbable net sculptures and the swimsuit onsen park fill the gaps. Nude communal baths and quiet formal inns are the catch.

Nikko's child-friendly side is at Kinugawa, with its Edo village of ninja shows and a park of miniature landmarks. Older children like the lake boats and the falls, but the shrines' steep stairs and the long bus rides make it harder going with toddlers.

Hakone's single pass covers railway, cable car, ropeway, boats and buses in one loop, so moving around is part of the sightseeing, although the villages are too far apart to walk between and weekend queues build at the ropeway.

Nikko's town is simpler, one 2km road from the stations to the shrines that you can walk. The trouble starts higher up, where everything depends on buses up the Irohazaka road that can crawl for hours on autumn weekends.

Hakone gives a shopper more to work with. In the workshops around Hatajuku you can watch yosegi marquetry being pieced together into puzzle boxes and trays, the museum shops are good for art and design books, and anyone who wants clothes can take the bus over the ridge to the outlet mall near Gotemba.

Nikko's shopping is one main street of souvenir and food stores. Its carved Nikko-bori trays and straw-soled geta are genuine local crafts and make good presents, alongside packaged yuba, but for fashion or department stores you wait for Tokyo.

Nikko is the gentler place on the wallet. It has a good supply of plain guesthouses, simple soba and yuba meals and reasonably priced shrine entry, and only the ryokan stay and the lake hotels in autumn push costs up.

In Hakone the ryokan night is the whole point, and the better inns with private outdoor baths are expensive. Hostels around Yumoto, public day-bathhouses and the good-value transport pass help a careful traveller keep costs down.

Neither has a theatre or concert life, but Nikko has one occasion worth timing a visit for. At the Toshogu festival in spring and autumn, a procession of armoured samurai re-enacts the shogun's funeral march, with horseback archery alongside. Hakone offers only the odd museum concert or a performance laid on at an inn.

Hakone was made for bathing. Seventeen hot-spring areas, from riverside Yumoto to the milky sulphur pools of Sengokuhara, inns with private baths on the balcony and day-bathhouses in the woods let you build a whole stay around soaking.

Nikko's springs are excellent but take more effort to reach. The large riverside inns are a train ride away at Kinugawa, and the remote, sulphurous Yumoto Onsen sits up by Lake Yunoko. Snow on the outdoor baths in winter gives Nikko a stillness of its own.