Alta, Utah or Scottsdale?

Neither city has a beach, but you'll find different kinds of water. In Alta, swimming means a lodge pool or a hot tub in the snow, and the Great Salt Lake below is too shallow and salty to swim in. Scottsdale has more going on: large resort pools, small sandy coves on Saguaro and Canyon lakes, and tubing down the Salt River in summer.

Scottsdale is much the better place to eat. Old Town has steakhouses, sushi, brunches and patio grills. The real local food is Sonoran Mexican, like carne asada and green chile, and Phoenix's better tables are a short drive away.

In Alta you eat at set dinners in the lodge dining rooms and at slopeside cafeterias, and Utah's liquor rules affect how drinks are served. Anyone who wants variety has to drive down to Salt Lake City, provided the canyon road is open.

Alta has no museums or historic buildings, only traces of its silver-mining past on the slopes. Scottsdale has real sights, if not many. Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West is part of a UNESCO listing, and there are western-era storefronts in Old Town and a museum of frontier art. The Heard Museum and the Musical Instrument Museum are both nearby, which is enough to fill a few good days.

Alta's evening is an après-ski drink in the lodge and an early night, which is exactly how its regulars like it. Scottsdale has a proper night out, although it is confined to a few blocks of Old Town. Patio bars, dance clubs and rooftop lounges stay loud until closing at weekends and during the spring season, with quieter wine rooms and cocktail bars around the edges.

For outdoors trips Alta is the stronger of the two. The village sits at around 2,600m and gets some of the deepest powder in North America, along with serious backcountry terrain, and in summer the Albion Basin is full of wildflowers, with moose and mountain goats on the trails.

Scottsdale's landscape is desert. There are saguaro trails in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, short steep climbs up Camelback and Pinnacle Peak, and longer days out in the Superstitions, along with golf and balloon flights. It is very good from autumn to spring, but the summer heat limits it in a way that Alta's mountains never are.

Scottsdale has more to reach. Sedona's red rocks, the Montezuma Castle cliff dwelling and the mining town of Jerome are all on one route north, Tucson and San Xavier lie to the south, and Goldfield ghost town makes an easy half-day.

From Alta the choices are Salt Lake City's Temple Square and Capitol, Park City's old Main Street and Ogden. In winter, every one of these depends on a single canyon road that can close after storms.

Scottsdale works for far more families. There are resort lazy rivers and kids' clubs, miniature trains at McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park, an aquarium, a butterfly house and the Phoenix Zoo, though children will need to be indoors or in the water by midday in summer.

Alta is good for families who ski, with a ski school and gentle runs near the base. For children who don't ski there is little to do, and the altitude and storm days spent stuck indoors can be hard on young ones.

Alta is the easier place to stay without a car. The lodges sit at the base of the lifts, many with ski-in, ski-out access, and in winter a shuttle and ski buses connect the village with Salt Lake City. The weak point is the canyon road, which gets jammed on powder mornings and closes for avalanche control.

Scottsdale is spread along wide arterial roads, and the light rail does not reach it. Apart from walking around Old Town and taking its trolley, nearly everything, from the airport to the trailheads, means hiring a car or using ride-hailing. Driving there is at least easy.

In Alta, shopping means ski tuning, gear and branded souvenirs. Scottsdale is a real shopping destination. It has a luxury mall with the big fashion houses, galleries on Main Street and Marshall Way, and dealers selling turquoise jewellery, Pueblo pottery and western boots, though the overall feel is polished and suburban.

Both are expensive, but Scottsdale is easier on a budget. Its resorts cut their rates sharply in summer, motels and business hotels line the main roads, Mexican food across the metro area is good value, and the desert trails cost nothing.

Alta has few beds, almost all in ski lodges with dinner included, and there is little budget accommodation in the canyon. The usual way to save is to stay in the Salt Lake valley and come up by bus each day.

Alta has no stage at all, so any concert or play means a drive down to Salt Lake City. Scottsdale has its own arts centre in Old Town for jazz, chamber music and dance, plus world-music concerts at the Musical Instrument Museum's theatre. Phoenix's symphony, opera and ballet are about half an hour away.

Scottsdale is built around this. It has a large number of big resort spas, desert-inspired treatments, yoga retreats and day passes, and a slow pace of golf and long lunches.

Alta's version is simpler: an outdoor hot tub steaming in the snow, a sauna and a massage in one of the larger lodges, then a quiet night. That is restful after a hard day on the slopes, but there isn't enough to plan a spa trip around.