Alta, Utah or Napa?

Neither city is a place for swimming. Alta's water is a lodge pool or a hot tub steaming in the snow, and the Great Salt Lake below is not somewhere people swim.

Napa offers slightly more. On a summer day you can swim and boat at Lake Berryessa in the eastern hills. The Sonoma coast is over an hour away and too cold and rough for swimming, so most visitors stay by the resort pool.

Alta's meals happen almost entirely inside the lodges. Most guests are on half board, with set dinners at long communal tables and lunch at the slopeside cafeterias, and Utah's liquor rules shape how drinks are served. It is filling food for skiers, and for any variety you have to drive down the canyon to Salt Lake City if the road is open.

In Napa, eating and drinking are the main reason to go. There is Cabernet from the estates on Highway 29, Pinot Noir and sparkling wine from Carneros, some of the country's most celebrated kitchens in Yountville and St Helena, and the bakers and oyster counters of the Oxbow market. Eating cheaply is harder. The taquerias that feed vineyard workers are good, but there is little street food, and most menus stick to Californian cooking.

There are few sights in either place. Alta's history as a silver-mining camp survives only as old mine workings on the slopes, and it has no museums at all.

Napa has a little more for an afternoon: the restored 1880 opera house on First Street, the Victorian streets, the contemporary art at di Rosa, and the old stone wineries and main streets of St Helena and Calistoga. One day covers it.

Both are early-to-bed places. Alta's evenings end after an après-ski drink in a lodge bar, and its regulars like it that way. For anything livelier you have to go to the resort next door or down to Salt Lake City.

Napa stays up a little later. After a long dinner there is a glass at a wine bar, or a cocktail bar or pub on the riverfront, and these are busier on summer weekends. For a real night out, San Francisco is about an hour away.

Alta's mountains are on a different scale. It sits at about 2,600m in the Wasatch Range, often gets more than 12m of snow in a winter, and has steep runs and real avalanche terrain for backcountry touring. In summer you can see moose and mountain goats on the trails to Cecret Lake.

Napa's landscape is gentler and more pastoral. It has vineyards edged with mustard flowers, hot-air balloons at dawn, a paved trail along the valley floor, and redwoods in Bothe-Napa Valley State Park. Point Reyes and Muir Woods are within reach, and they add a coast that Alta does not have.

From Alta, the choices are Salt Lake City with Temple Square, Park City's old mining Main Street, or Ogden further north. In winter, every one of those trips depends on a canyon road that can close after a storm.

Napa has far more within easy reach. Yountville, St Helena and Calistoga are each a short drive. Sonoma's plaza and mission are over the Carneros hills, and Healdsburg and the Russian River make a second wine country to explore. San Francisco is an hour away by car or by ferry from Vallejo.

For families, the real question is whether everyone skis. In Alta, skiing families are well looked after, with a ski school for children, gentle runs near the base and rooms a few steps from the lifts. Children who don't ski will have almost nothing to do, and the altitude and storm days stuck indoors can wear them down. Summer is easier, with short wildflower walks that children can manage.

Napa suits families who are happy to plan around the adults' wine. Children can go to the theme and animal park in Vallejo, see the geyser and petting farm near Calistoga, and swim in the hotel pool. Long drives between wineries and the summer heat are hard on younger children.

Once you are up in Alta, getting around is easy. The lodges sit at the lifts, many are ski-in, ski-out, and a shuttle runs through the village in winter. The weak point is the one road up the canyon, which jams on powder mornings and closes for avalanche control.

Napa is harder to get around. The walkable downtown is small, the wineries are spread along some 50km of road, and the buses run too rarely to rely on. Since tasting and driving do not mix, many visitors pay for a driver or a tour.

In Alta, shopping means renting and tuning skis and buying a branded hat. There are no boutiques at all.

Napa gives you more to take home. Wine shipped by the case is the main purchase. You can also find olive oil and kitchenware at the Oxbow market, cookware and design shops on St Helena's main street, and an outlet mall for familiar brands. Fashion is the gap.

Both are expensive trips, for different reasons. Alta has few beds, almost all in a handful of lodges with dinner included, although lift tickets are moderate for a major American ski area. The way to save is to stay in the Salt Lake valley and take the bus up.

Napa's costs come from luxury hotels, especially on weekends and at harvest, from tasting fees at the well-known estates, and from the cost of a driver. Chain hotels further south, the taquerias and the smaller cellars bring the bill down a little.

Alta has no stage at all. Any concert, play or symphony means an evening in Salt Lake City.

Napa has a modest programme. The 1880 opera house hosts concerts and comedy, and a 1930s Art Deco theatre books touring bands. In summer there is a classical festival in winery venues, and a big rock and pop festival comes to the fairgrounds in late spring. For opera or an orchestra, you go to San Francisco.

Alta's version of wellness is a hot tub in the snow after a hard day on the slopes, a sauna and perhaps a massage in a small lodge spa. Its real gift is the quiet, especially on storm days, when the snow muffles everything.

Napa has much more to offer here. Calistoga has been a hot-spring town since the nineteenth century, with volcanic mud baths and mineral pools. The resorts in Carneros and the hills run large spas that use treatments made from grape seeds. Weekdays and the months from late autumn to spring are the calmest times to go.