Lake George or Newport, Rhode Island?

Lake George has the better swimming. The clear fresh water warms to about 24°C in midsummer, and there is a broad lifeguarded sandy beach at the south end of the village, a smaller one at Shepard Park and island shores in the Narrows that you reach by boat. The water is calm throughout, with no salt and no surf.

Newport's beaches face the Atlantic and the water is a few degrees cooler. There is Easton's Beach below the Cliff Walk, the longer and wilder Second and Third Beaches in Middletown and the sheltered cove at Gooseberry. They suit people who want waves and sea air, though in both places the swimming season lasts barely two months.

Newport eats far better, and seafood is the reason. There are lobster rolls, local oysters at raw bars on the wharves, Rhode Island's clear chowder and clam cakes, and a few polished dining rooms on Bellevue Avenue.

Lake George is mostly pizza, pancakes and ice cream on waterfront decks. A few careful dining rooms at Bolton Landing serve Adirondack game and lake fish. Keen eaters at the lake drive to Saratoga Springs for dinner, much as Newport's visitors go to Providence when they want more choice.

This is where the two differ most. Newport has the Vanderbilt-era mansions of Bellevue Avenue with their rooms intact, and one of the country's largest groups of colonial houses on the Point and Historic Hill. Add Touro Synagogue, the Redwood Library and Fort Adams, and you have two or three full days.

Lake George has Fort William Henry, a reconstruction of the fort besieged in 1757 that is linked to The Last of the Mohicans, and a small historical museum in the old courthouse. Its Gilded Age estates are seen from a boat rather than toured, and the region's more important history, at Ticonderoga and Saratoga, is a drive away.

Neither town has clubs worth the name, and both go quiet after summer. Newport has a little more to offer. Along Thames Street and the wharves there are Irish-style pubs, cocktail bars and waterfront decks, full of sailing crews and wedding parties.

At Lake George, a night out means a beer on a Canada Street deck among boaters and young day-trippers. It is loud on a summer weekend and quiet the rest of the year, and the shore hamlets go to bed early.

Lake George lies inside the Adirondack Park, and the outdoors is its real strength. It has 50km of lake with more than a hundred islands for paddling, sailing and camping, and summit trails on Prospect, Black and Tongue Mountains. The High Peaks are within two hours, the autumn colour is spectacular from late September, and Gore Mountain offers skiing in winter.

Newport's landscape is flat and coastal: the Cliff Walk, the wave-cut ledges at Brenton Point and birdwatching at Sachuest Point. Above all it is a sailing town, one of the great ones in North America. Choose it for salt water and sea wind rather than mountains.

Newport has the slightly stronger list, mainly because both Providence and Boston are within reach. Bristol, Block Island by ferry, New Bedford's whaling museum and Mystic's seaport are also close.

Lake George's outings lean towards history and mountains. There is Saratoga Springs with its racecourse and spa, Fort Ticonderoga on its headland over Lake Champlain, Lake Placid with its Olympic history, and the Vermont towns over the state line. From either base you will need a car.

Lake George was built as a family summer resort, and it shows. The Great Escape theme park and water park are close by, and the village has a gently sloping lifeguarded beach, paddlewheel steamboats, musket firing at Fort William Henry and a strip of mini golf and arcades. Motels with pools and cottages with kitchens make family stays easy.

Newport works for a few days, with its calm coves, the carousel at Easton's Beach, the ramparts of Fort Adams and the touch tanks at Save The Bay. But its main sights are long mansion tours that bore children, and there is no theme park or zoo.

Newport is easier on foot. The harbour, Thames Street and the colonial streets are close together. Buses and a summer trolley reach the mansions and beaches, and a harbour ferry runs in season.

At Lake George, only the village core around Canada Street and the steamboat pier is walkable. The western shore hamlets, the trailheads and every day trip need a car, and both places suffer from summer traffic and scarce parking. On the lake itself, a rented boat is the best way to get around.

Neither place is worth a trip for shopping, but Newport makes a better afternoon of it. There are galleries and sailing clothes on the wharves, smarter boutiques on Bellevue Avenue and antiques on Spring and Franklin Streets.

Lake George's Canada Street is mostly fudge and T-shirts. The serious shopping is at the outlet centres on Route 9, and the best gifts are Adirondack crafts, maple syrup and balsam pillows.

Lake George is easier on the budget. Lakefront rooms are expensive in midsummer, but older motels on Route 9, rental cottages with kitchens, free beaches and trails, and cheaper beds in Glens Falls keep a family trip manageable.

Newport is expensive in most respects. There are few budget beds in the centre, and mansion tickets, seafood dinners and parking add up. Visitors usually save by staying in Middletown, or by coming midweek or in winter.

Newport has the bigger place in music history. The Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals are held at Fort Adams with the harbour behind the stage, and chamber music fills the mansion ballrooms each July. Outside those weeks there is little more than bar bands and community theatre.

Lake George is more modest, with free concerts by the water in Shepard Park, a September jazz weekend, an August chamber music festival and summer theatre. For orchestras and ballet, visitors drive to the amphitheatre at Saratoga Springs.

The two are much alike here: neither has a bathing tradition of its own, there are spas in the resort hotels, and the pace slows once the summer crowds leave. What differs is the setting. Lake George's calm is on the islands and points near Bolton Landing, with Saratoga's historic mineral baths under an hour away, while Newport offers yoga studios and a quiet Cliff Walk in late spring and early autumn.