Albuquerque or Santa Monica?

There is no real contest here. Albuquerque is a desert city about 1,000km from the ocean. The Rio Grande is not for swimming, so cooling off means a hotel pool or a drive out to Cochiti Lake.

Santa Monica is built around a broad band of pale, lifeguarded sand, with quieter and more scenic beaches towards Zuma and Point Dume. The Pacific stays cool, though, so expect more wading and sunbathing than long swims, and walk a little way from the pier for cleaner water.

Both are good places to eat, in opposite ways. Albuquerque has a cuisine of its own: red or green chile, carne adovada, posole and sopaipillas in long-running family places in the valleys and along Route 66, plus plenty of brewery taprooms. Fine dining and international choice are limited.

Santa Monica offers polished Californian cooking shaped by its farmers market, with good seafood, brunch and Italian and Japanese restaurants, but it has no dish of its own to seek out. The cheap immigrant food Los Angeles is known for is a long drive east.

Albuquerque gives a curious visitor more to do. Old Town's adobe plaza and its 1793 church, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the nuclear science museum and the rock carvings at Petroglyph National Monument fill a couple of good days. Together they tell the region's Native, Spanish and atomic history.

Santa Monica itself has the pier, the galleries of Bergamot Station and some handsome Art Deco buildings. Its best cultural day is at the two Getty museums just outside town, which are excellent but need a car.

Neither is a place for big nights out, but the style differs. Albuquerque's downtown strip on Central Avenue has a few dance clubs that fill and get loud at weekends, while Nob Hill and the brewery patios suit a calmer evening. Midweek the city is very quiet.

Santa Monica has rooftop bars with ocean views, Main Street pubs and the looser crowd of Venice instead of clubs, and a drink at sunset is often the high point of the night. Serious clubbing means a long taxi ride to Hollywood.

Here it is desert at altitude against mountains that run down to the sea. Albuquerque offers high desert and pine forest: the tramway to the Sandia crest above 3,000m, the cottonwood bosque along the Rio Grande with its wintering cranes, and volcanic escarpments to the west. Summer heat pushes hiking into spring and autumn.

Santa Monica pairs the chaparral canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains with the Pacific. It adds surfing lessons, the long beach bike path and whale and dolphin watching, and the weather lets you be outdoors in any month.

The day trips are about equally rich but lead in different directions. From Albuquerque they head into history: Santa Fe's plaza and Canyon Road galleries, also reachable by train, Acoma's Sky City on its mesa, the cliff dwellings at Bandelier and the ruined churches of the Salinas missions.

From Santa Monica they run along the coast to Santa Barbara's mission and wine country, to Laguna Beach and to Catalina Island, or into Los Angeles for the Huntington and Hollywood. Around Santa Monica traffic limits how far you get, while in New Mexico it is the distances.

Santa Monica is the easier choice with children. It has a wide lifeguarded beach for digging, the pier's Ferris wheel, carousel and small aquarium, playgrounds along the sand and flat paths for bike rides, all in a compact town with mild weather. Theme parks are a long drive away, and visible homelessness downtown bothers some parents.

Albuquerque has good attractions in the BioPark, Explora, the dinosaur halls and the Sandia tramway, and the dawn launches of the October Balloon Fiesta are worth planning a trip around. Every outing needs the car, though, and the summer sun at altitude is fierce.

Santa Monica is far simpler without a car on local days. Downtown, the pier and Main Street are walkable, the blue buses fill the gaps and the E Line light rail runs to downtown Los Angeles. Reaching the Getty, the Malibu canyons or Hollywood still means jammed freeways or ride-hailing.

In Albuquerque only Old Town is really walkable, and a single bus line along Central Avenue links the main districts. Plan on hiring a car at the airport, though driving and parking are easy.

Santa Monica gives shoppers more range. There are chains on the Third Street Promenade, boutiques on Montana Avenue, surf shops on Main Street and the design-led stores of Abbot Kinney in Venice, with Rodeo Drive a short drive away.

Albuquerque's offer is narrower but distinctive: silver and turquoise jewellery, Pueblo pottery and Navajo weaving around Old Town and the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, best bought directly from the artists. Beyond that and a few vintage shops in Nob Hill, it is suburban mall retail.

Albuquerque is clearly the cheaper stay. Hotels are fairly priced for most of the year and New Mexican plates are generous, though car hire is the main expense, and rooms become scarce and dear during Balloon Fiesta week.

Santa Monica is expensive even for California, with costly oceanfront rooms in summer and high restaurant bills. The free beach, trails and bike path help, and staying inland on the Westside brings the hotel bill down.

Flamenco and Pueblo dance give Albuquerque a stage you would not expect in the desert. A long-established flamenco institute and an annual festival draw dancers from Spain, and there are traditional dances on weekends at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. Popejoy Hall brings touring Broadway shows, and in summer Santa Fe's open-air opera is an evening's drive away.

Santa Monica's own stage is smaller and quieter: chamber music and dance at the Broad Stage, folk and acoustic sets in small rooms, and free summer concerts on the pier. The Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall are on the far side of Los Angeles traffic.

Santa Monica is the better place to unwind day to day. It has yoga on the sand, morning runs by the ocean, polished beachfront spas and sunset over the bay as a daily ritual, though there is no bathing culture.

Albuquerque offers resort spas on Pueblo lands just outside town, but its real asset is further out: the mineral pools of Jemez Springs, over an hour's drive away, and the bathhouses around Santa Fe. Within the city, rest comes mostly from the quiet evenings and big skies.