Stowe or Williamsburg, Virginia?

Neither town is on the coast. In Stowe, swimming means fresh water: rocky holes in the mountain streams and the small sandy shores at Lake Elmore and Waterbury Reservoir. The lake season is short, from late June to early September, and a swim is a break in a day of hiking, not a reason to come.

Williamsburg gets you closer to a real beach day. There is the calm strip at Yorktown, Buckroe Beach on the Chesapeake, and the long Atlantic sand of Virginia Beach about an hour away, all with warmer water than a Vermont lake. Sea nettles can drift into the bay in high summer, so many families stay with hotel pools and Water Country USA instead.

Stowe eats a little better, thanks to Vermont's produce. Some of the country's most sought-after hazy IPA breweries are in town or nearby, and farm cheddar, maple syrup and cider doughnuts are everywhere. Mountain Road has a good spread of farm-to-table dining rooms and après-ski taverns for a town of its size.

Williamsburg's strengths are Virginia classics: ham biscuits, peanut soup, crab cakes and bay oysters. The candlelit colonial taverns sell the setting more than the cooking, and Richmond Road is mostly pancake houses and chains. Merchants Square and the college streets are where to look for a better meal.

This is where the two differ most. Williamsburg is built around Colonial Williamsburg, a whole eighteenth-century capital where costumed interpreters work as blacksmiths and printers. Duke of Gloucester Street runs from the Capitol to the Wren Building, the Governor's Palace stands at the end of its green, and the art museums hold serious collections of American folk and decorative art.

Stowe has a pretty New England village with covered bridges, a ski museum, a small arts centre and the von Trapp hillside estate. It makes a pleasant afternoon, and people come for the mountain instead.

Both towns go quiet early, and the difference is in who is out. Stowe's evenings are après-ski: crowded base-lodge bars and brewery taprooms, with the odd band on winter weekends and not much in the off-season. In Williamsburg the pubs near the College of William & Mary fill with students in term time, and for most visitors a candlelit ghost walk is the late part of the night. For anything bigger, Stowe sends you to Burlington and Williamsburg to Norfolk or Richmond.

Stowe is far ahead here. Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest peak, rises straight out of the valley with a major ski area, glades and a wide cross-country network. In summer there is the Long Trail, the boulder-filled pass of Smugglers' Notch, waterfalls and mountain-bike trails, and in early October the valley turns red and gold.

Williamsburg's Tidewater country is low and gentle: tidal creeks, marsh, and the quiet Colonial Parkway beside the James and York rivers. It is good for an easy cycle on the Capital Trail or a kayak trip to look for ospreys and bald eagles, but there is nothing to climb, and the summer mosquitoes are hard to ignore.

Williamsburg has much stronger outings close by. Jamestown and Yorktown, the other two corners of the Historic Triangle, are each under half an hour away. Beyond them are the James River plantation houses along Route 5, Richmond's capitol and Civil War sites, and Monticello at the far edge of a day out.

From Stowe the list is shorter and gentler. You can go to Burlington and its Lake Champlain waterfront, the Shelburne Museum with its historic buildings and lake steamboat, gold-domed Montpelier, or the postcard village of Woodstock further south.

Williamsburg is one of the East Coast's standard family trips, and it shows. Busch Gardens and Water Country USA are next to living history children can join in with, such as musket firings, fife-and-drum parades and replica ships at Jamestown. Motels with pools and child-friendly restaurants are everywhere.

Stowe suits a different family. It has a large ski school and gentle slopes on Mount Mansfield and Spruce Peak, a resort built for children over Smugglers' Notch, and the flat river path for bikes and pushchairs. There are no zoos or children's museums, though, so the outdoors has to be the entertainment.

You will want a car in both, but Williamsburg is a little easier on foot. Its Historic Area, Merchants Square and the campus make one flat district you can walk end to end in about 20 minutes, with Duke of Gloucester Street closed to traffic by day. Amtrak trains stop near the centre.

Stowe stretches along an 11km valley road from the village to the lifts. A free shuttle runs in ski season and the riverside path links much of the valley in warmer months. Otherwise you drive, on steep and sometimes icy winter roads that call for snow tyres.

Williamsburg gives shoppers more to do. The colonial shops in the Historic Area sell pewter, silver, pottery and books printed in the old way. Merchants Square has brick-fronted gift and clothing stores, and Richmond Road adds a large outlet centre and a pottery and homeware store with a long history. Stowe keeps to ski and outdoor shops, a few boutiques and craft galleries, and maple syrup and cheddar to take home.

Williamsburg is the cheaper of the two. Motels, chain hotels and condos along its main roads keep rooms reasonable outside the summer peaks. The big costs are admission to Colonial Williamsburg, the Triangle sites and the theme parks, which makes combination passes worth checking.

Stowe is priced as a leading eastern ski resort. Lift tickets, rentals and resort dining add up fast, and rooms are dearest at Christmas, in the school vacations and in foliage season. Summer and the spring and November shoulder months are where a careful budget works, using valley motels and the free trails.

The two are close here, and neither has an orchestra or a professional theatre company. The programmes differ in style. Stowe has a performing arts centre at Spruce Peak with touring acts and comedy, summer community theatre in the village, and outdoor concerts on the hillside lawns that recall the von Trapps.

In Williamsburg most of the music belongs to the period setting: candlelit eighteenth-century recitals, period theatre and fife-and-drum corps on Duke of Gloucester Street. The college adds student concerts in term time, and the theme parks put on stage shows.

Stowe is the better place to unwind. Its large resorts have full spas with saunas, steam rooms and heated outdoor pools where you can sit in hot water as snow falls on the mountain. Couples from the northeastern cities come for spa weekends, especially in the quiet seasons, and the inns and wood fires keep evenings slow.

Williamsburg's spas at the historic inn and the James River golf resorts are more ordinary. Its calm comes from early walks on the empty colonial greens and slow drives on the Colonial Parkway, away from the theme-park crowds.