Albuquerque or Rapid City?

Neither city is anywhere near the sea, and Albuquerque offers less. The Rio Grande is too silty and fast for bathing, so swimming means a hotel pool or a drive to Cochiti Lake.

Rapid City does better in summer. Sheridan Lake, Pactola Reservoir and Sylvan Lake lie in the pine hills within half an hour, with small sandy or gravel shores and clear water that makes a pleasant swim in July and August. A swim there is a good pause on a driving day, but never a reason to come.

Of the two, Albuquerque is the one worth travelling to for food. New Mexican cooking is a regional cuisine in its own right, built on local chile. The question of red or green follows you from carne adovada and blue corn enchiladas to breakfast burritos, and the best of it is found in long-running family places in the South and North Valleys and along Route 66. Late summer brings the smell of roasting chile, and the brewery taprooms in Nob Hill and downtown are good.

Rapid City's food is hearty but plain: steaks, bison burgers, chislic and Indian tacos on Lakota fry bread, with a handful of brewpubs and more ambitious kitchens around Main Street. It is satisfying after a day in the hills, but the choice narrows quickly once you leave downtown.

Albuquerque has far more to see in town. Old Town's adobe plaza and San Felipe de Neri church, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, the National Hispanic Cultural Center and the nuclear science museum cover Native, Spanish and atomic-age history. Petroglyph National Monument lies on the city's edge, and together they fill a rewarding couple of days.

Rapid City's own sights are lighter. There are the bronze presidents on downtown street corners, the Journey Museum's story of the Black Hills, Badlands fossils at the School of Mines and Cold War aircraft beside Ellsworth. The landmarks people come for are out in the hills rather than in town.

Albuquerque has the livelier evenings, though neither is a city for a night out. On Central Avenue, downtown has bars and a few dance clubs that fill at weekends, while Nob Hill has calmer cocktail bars and taprooms. The warm, dry nights keep the patios in use from spring to autumn.

In Rapid City, going out means a few blocks around Main Street Square: brewpubs, sports bars and country-music bars that mostly wind down early, with almost no clubs. Only the Sturgis rally in early August makes the region loud and late.

Both are good bases for the outdoors, but Rapid City has more variety close at hand. The Black Hills start at the western edge of town, with granite spires, ponderosa forest and scenic roads such as the Needles Highway. Custer State Park's bison herd, the Wind Cave and Jewel Cave tours and the Badlands ridges are all within about an hour, and the Mickelson Trail gives cyclists 175km of old rail bed.

Albuquerque's great asset is the Sandia Mountains, reached by aerial tramway or on foot up the steep La Luz Trail. It also has the cottonwood bosque along the Rio Grande and volcanic cones to the west. The Jemez Mountains and the canyon country need a longer drive, and summer heat at low elevations pushes the best walking into spring and autumn.

The two are evenly matched for days out, but the trips are of a different kind. From Albuquerque the standout is one town, Santa Fe, an hour north and reachable by commuter train, with its plaza, the galleries of Canyon Road and serious museums. Beyond it, Acoma's Sky City, Bandelier's cliff dwellings and the villages of the Turquoise Trail are spread out and need a car.

Rapid City's trips are monuments and frontier towns grouped in the hills. Mount Rushmore is half an hour away, with the Crazy Horse Memorial, gold-rush Deadwood and the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs further out, and the Minuteman Missile silo and Wall on the prairie to the east. All of them need a car, but several fit into a single loop through Keystone, Hill City and Custer.

Albuquerque does well with children. It has the BioPark's zoo, aquarium and garden, Explora and the dinosaur halls in the museum district, and the tramway ride up the Sandias. Its big family moment is the Balloon Fiesta at dawn each October, though the strong summer sun at altitude needs care.

Rapid City has the edge, because the Black Hills have been a family road-trip destination for generations. Bison holding up traffic in Custer State Park, cave tours, gold panning, the dig at the Mammoth Site, the reptile park and Storybook Island make a week of varied days, and motels with pools and campgrounds are easy to find.

Both are car cities, but Albuquerque gives a visitor without one a little more to work with. The bus along Central Avenue links Old Town, downtown, the university and Nob Hill, and the commuter train runs to Santa Fe, so a day or two without a car is possible.

In Rapid City only the compact downtown works on foot. The city buses do not reach Mount Rushmore or the parks, which leaves seasonal tour buses as the only alternative. In return, the drive through the hills, tunnels and hairpins included, is part of the pleasure.

Native craft is the thing to buy in both cities, and the choice is much wider in Albuquerque. Silver and turquoise jewellery, Pueblo pottery, Navajo weaving and kachina carvings fill the shops around Old Town's plaza and the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Nob Hill adds a short stretch of independent and vintage shops.

Rapid City's own speciality is Black Hills gold with its grape-leaf designs. Downtown galleries sell Lakota quillwork, beadwork and star quilts alongside Western boots and hats. Beyond them, it is mostly souvenir shops in Keystone and Wall.

Costs are broadly similar, and in both the rental car and fuel are the expense you cannot avoid. Free sights help in each: the petroglyphs and foothills trails in Albuquerque, the presidents' statues and Dinosaur Park in Rapid City.

What differs is when prices jump. Albuquerque's hotels stay fairly priced for most of the year, apart from the sharp rise during Balloon Fiesta week in October. In Rapid City the whole summer peak costs more, and the Sturgis rally week in August most of all, so late spring and early autumn are the times to go for value.

For an evening at the theatre or a concert, Albuquerque gives you more choice. Popejoy Hall brings touring Broadway shows and the philharmonic, and the KiMo Theatre stages film, theatre and concerts in its Pueblo Deco interior. The city also has an unusual depth in flamenco, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center holds traditional dances at weekends, and in summer the open-air opera above Santa Fe is an evening's drive away.

Rapid City has the Black Hills Symphony Orchestra, touring shows at the civic centre and a summer playhouse among the pines of Custer State Park. Its most distinctive performances are the powwows, above all the large one held each autumn.

Neither is a spa destination, and both rely on hot springs an hour or so away. From Albuquerque you can reach the mineral pools at Jemez Springs, or the Japanese-style bathhouses and older springs around Santa Fe. Closer in, there are resort spas on Pueblo lands with mountain views.

Rapid City's equivalent is the town of Hot Springs, where a historic indoor pool fed by warm springs has drawn bathers since the 1890s. Otherwise, rest there means a quiet cabin or lodge in the hills.