Lake George or Williamsburg, Virginia?

At Lake George swimming is part of every summer day. The state beach at the south end of the village, Shepard Park and the islands in the Narrows all sit on clear fresh water, although the season only runs from late June to early September. Williamsburg is inland, so a swim means driving to the calm strip at Yorktown, to Buckroe Beach on the bay or to the Atlantic sand of Virginia Beach, about an hour away.

The Virginia water is warmer and its season longer, but sea nettles can drift into the bay in high summer, and most visitors make do with a pool or a water park.

Neither town is worth travelling to for the food, but Williamsburg gives you more to look for. Country ham biscuits, peanut soup, Chesapeake crab cakes and oysters are genuine regional dishes, and Merchants Square has a few good bistros and wine bars.

Lake George eats mostly pizza, burgers and pancakes on waterfront decks. The better dining rooms are up at Bolton Landing, and visitors who care about food often drive to Saratoga Springs for dinner.

This is where the two differ most. Williamsburg is built around a whole restored colonial capital, with costumed tradespeople along Duke of Gloucester Street, the Governor's Palace, the Wren Building and serious museums of folk and decorative art.

Lake George has one strong sight, the reconstructed Fort William Henry and the story of its 1757 siege, plus a small historical museum. For the region's more important history at Fort Ticonderoga and Saratoga, you have to drive.

Both towns go to bed early, but Lake George at least has a summer scene. On weekends the bars along Canada Street and the waterfront decks fill with boaters and stay loud until closing. Evenings in Williamsburg mean a tavern dinner, a ghost walk or a drink with students near the college, and for a real night out you drive to Norfolk or Richmond.

For the outdoors, Lake George is far ahead. The lake, its islands and the forested ridges of the Adirondack Park give you kayaking, island camping, summit hikes on Prospect and Black Mountain, spectacular autumn colour and downhill skiing at Gore Mountain, about an hour away.

The Tidewater around Williamsburg is flat and gentle. You can cycle the Colonial Parkway or the Capital Trail and paddle tidal creeks where you might see ospreys and eagles, but the summers are humid and full of mosquitoes.

Both make good bases for driving out, and the difference is in the kind of outing. From Lake George the trips mix towns and landscapes: the racecourse and springs of Saratoga, Fort Ticonderoga above Lake Champlain, Olympic Lake Placid and the small towns of Vermont.

Almost every trip from Williamsburg is about history, and the main sites are closer. Jamestown and Yorktown are a short drive away, with the James River plantations, Richmond and Monticello further out. Either way you need a car.

Williamsburg pulls slightly ahead for families because its days out mix rides with history. Lake George has the Great Escape and its water park, a gently sloping lifeguarded beach, paddlewheel steamboats and the mini golf of Canada Street, but most of it shuts once summer is over.

In Williamsburg, Busch Gardens and Water Country USA go alongside musket firings, fife-and-drum parades and the replica ships at Jamestown and Yorktown, so children learn something between the roller coasters. The drawback there is the humid summer heat.

You need a car in both, but Williamsburg is a little easier on foot. Its Historic Area, Merchants Square and the campus form a flat district you can walk, with a main street closed to cars during the day, a shuttle around the edge and an Amtrak stop near the centre.

At Lake George you can only walk around the village itself, Canada Street and the pier, though summer trolleys run to Glens Falls. Everything else is by road, and parking in summer is a nuisance. A rented boat is the best way to see the lake.

Williamsburg's shopping has a character that Lake George lacks: pewter, silver, pottery and reproduction furniture made in eighteenth-century styles, plus the brick-fronted shops of Merchants Square. Both towns have outlet centres selling American brands. Otherwise Lake George sells souvenirs and fudge on Canada Street, and the gifts worth finding are Adirondack crafts, maple syrup and balsam pillows.

At Lake George most of the money goes on the room. Lakefront rooms and July and August weekends are the big expense, while older motels on Route 9, cottages with kitchens and free beaches and trails help keep costs down. Spring and autumn are much cheaper.

In Williamsburg the rooms are the easy part. Motels and chain hotels are plentiful and reasonably priced outside the peak weeks, but the admission tickets for Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown and the theme parks add up, so the combination passes are worth looking into.

Neither town has much, and in both cases serious audiences go elsewhere. At Lake George live music happens in summer by the water: free concerts in Shepard Park, a September jazz weekend and an August chamber music festival, with the Saratoga amphitheatre under an hour away.

In Williamsburg the performances are built around its past, with candlelit eighteenth-century recitals, period theatre and fife-and-drum corps, plus student productions at William & Mary in term time.

Lake George is more restful, as long as you stay away from the village: resort spas on the islands and points near Bolton Landing, lakeside cottages and quiet mornings on the water, with Saratoga's historic mineral baths under an hour away. Williamsburg relies on the spas at the historic inn and the golf resorts along the James, though early walks on the empty greens and drives down the Colonial Parkway make a calm stay possible.