Alta, Utah or Huntington Beach?

Alta has no beach at all. It is a mountain village at the head of a canyon, and the Great Salt Lake below is not a place for a swim.

Huntington Beach is built around its shoreline: about 14km of flat sand with volleyball nets, fire rings and a path running the whole length. The Pacific here is surf water, cool outside late summer, with rip currents that keep swimmers near the lifeguard towers. Calmer coves are half an hour south at Laguna.

In Alta you mostly eat where you sleep. That means set dinners at communal tables in the lodges on half board, and slopeside cafeterias at lunch. Utah's liquor rules shape the drinks, and for any real choice you drive down to Salt Lake City, weather permitting.

Huntington Beach offers far more, if mostly casual: fish tacos by the pier, brewpubs and seafood with ocean views. Its real asset is Little Saigon a short drive inland, where pho houses and banh mi bakeries make a meal worth planning a day around.

Neither is a sightseeing destination, but Huntington Beach gives you a little more to see. The pier, the International Surfing Museum and the Surfers' Hall of Fame handprints tell the story of a sport the town helped define.

Alta's past as a silver-mining camp survives only as traces of old workings on the slopes, with no museum or historic building to visit. For heritage, Alta sends you to Salt Lake City, while Huntington Beach points you to Los Angeles and the Spanish missions.

An evening in Alta is a drink in a lodge bar after skiing, then bed, and regulars like it that way. Any livelier après is at the next resort down the road.

Huntington Beach has an actual night out, concentrated on Main Street. Sports bars, rooftop beach bars and a few dance spots fill with a young local crowd on summer weekends. It is one strip that closes at 2am, though, so a bigger night means Long Beach or Los Angeles.

Alta is in a different league for the outdoors. At around 2,600m in the Wasatch, it gets storm after storm of light powder, often more than 12m a winter. The terrain is steep and skier-only, and backcountry bowls demand real avalanche awareness. Summer brings Albion Basin's wildflowers, the walk to Cecret Lake, harder climbs to Sugarloaf, and moose on the trails.

Huntington Beach's nature is the ocean, with consistent surf, paddling in the harbour channels and excellent birding at the Bolsa Chica wetlands. The land around it is flat suburb, and the nearest hiking is at Crystal Cove and the Laguna hills, half an hour away.

From Alta the choices are few. You can go to Salt Lake City for Temple Square and the Capitol, Park City for its old mining Main Street, or Ogden. All of them depend on the one canyon road, which shuts after heavy storms, and Utah's national parks are much too far for a day.

Huntington Beach is the better base, as long as you have a car. Los Angeles, Laguna Beach and Mission San Juan Capistrano are all within an hour. The ferry to Catalina Island makes a distinctive day out, and San Diego or the Temecula wine country are reachable on a longer one.

Huntington Beach is much the easier choice with children. It has theme parks within half an hour, the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, sandy beaches, the lakes of Huntington Central Park and tide pools down the coast, and the hotels are used to families. The surf suits boogie boards better than toddlers, and every outing means the car.

Alta works only for families who ski together. It has a ski school, gentle runs near the base and meals close to the slopes, but nothing else is aimed at children. Altitude, cold and storm days spent indoors can wear young ones down.

Once you are up the canyon, Alta is the simpler place to get around. Lodges sit at the lifts, many with ski-in, ski-out access, and a winter shuttle links the village, so a skier can go days without a car. The weak point is the single road from Salt Lake City, about 50km away. It backs up on powder mornings and closes for avalanche control.

Huntington Beach is walkable only around the pier and Main Street, and pleasant by bike along the beach path. Everything else, from the theme parks to Little Saigon, means driving on busy freeways, because the buses are slow and there is no rail.

Alta's shops rent and tune skis and sell outdoor gear and souvenirs, and that is all.

Huntington Beach has a recognisable style to shop for: surf shops, local board makers and beachwear around Main Street and the pier. Twenty minutes away, South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa puts the major fashion houses under one roof.

Neither is cheap, but Huntington Beach gives you more ways to save. Inland motels undercut the beachfront hotels, the beach costs nothing, and the Vietnamese and Mexican places in the county feed you well for little. Budget for a hire car and parking, though.

Alta has only a handful of lodges, priced high in season and often with dinner included because there is nowhere else to eat. Lift tickets are fair by American standards, but anyone watching costs sleeps in the Salt Lake valley and commutes up the canyon.

Alta has no stage of any kind, so a concert or a play means an evening in Salt Lake City.

Huntington Beach itself offers only bar bands, summer park concerts and a community theatre. A short drive to Costa Mesa, though, brings you to the Segerstrom Center for the Arts, with the Pacific Symphony, touring Broadway shows, ballet and opera, and to South Coast Repertory's theatre season.

Both offer modest spas and no bathing tradition, so the difference is in the mood. Alta's relaxation is the tired calm after a ski day: outdoor hot tubs steaming in the snow, saunas, a massage, and nights so quiet that storms muffle the village entirely.

Huntington Beach relaxes you in warmer ways, with yoga on the sand, sunset walks along the pier and evenings around a beach fire. Its spas are resort hotels and ordinary day spas rather than dedicated retreats.