Alta, Utah or Sonoma?

Neither place is for the sea. Alta has nothing beyond a lodge pool or hot tub, and the Great Salt Lake below is too shallow and briny for anyone to swim in.

Sonoma does a little better. The Russian River's gravel beaches warm up enough in summer for a lazy afternoon in the water, and the cliffs and coves around Bodega Bay make a fine drive, even though the cold Pacific there is not for swimming.

In Alta you eat because you have skied, not because the food draws you. Dinner is usually a half-board set menu at long communal tables in your lodge, lunch is in a slopeside cafeteria, and Utah's liquor rules shape how a drink arrives.

In Sonoma, eating and drinking are the point of the trip. Wineries line the valley, with old-vine Zinfandel, Cabernet and Carneros Pinot Noir, and the cooking leans on local cheese, olive oil and coastal oysters. The choice is modest for a small town, but a long lunch here is worth planning a day around.

Alta has almost nothing to visit. Its silver-mining past survives only as old workings scattered across the ski slopes.

Sonoma has a real, if compact, historic core. Its broad plaza is where the Bear Flag Revolt declared a short-lived California Republic in 1846, and Mission San Francisco Solano and the adobe barracks face it. Add Vallejo's Gothic house at Lachryma Montis and the ruins of Jack London's Wolf House in Glen Ellen, and you have a satisfying half day that Alta cannot match.

Alta's evening is an après-ski drink in a lodge bar and an early night, since the lifts set the rhythm of the whole village. If you want more noise after skiing, the neighbouring resort down the road has the livelier après scene.

Sonoma stays up a little longer. Dinner leads on to a glass in a wine bar, a brewpub or one of the old saloons around the plaza, and on summer nights the square itself is a pleasant place to linger. Neither town has clubs. A proper night out means driving to Salt Lake City from Alta, or to Santa Rosa or back to San Francisco from Sonoma.

Alta is the more spectacular landscape. At around 2,600m in the Wasatch, it gets famously deep, dry powder, steep terrain and serious backcountry touring with real avalanche risk. In summer Albion Basin's wildflowers, the climb to Sugarloaf and sightings of moose and mountain goats make it a high-mountain trip in either season.

Sonoma's countryside is gentler and more varied. Vineyards roll between oak-covered ranges, trails start almost at the plaza, Sugarloaf Ridge has redwood groves, and quiet roads suit a bicycle. Point Reyes and the wild coast are within an hour, but nothing here matches the scale of Alta's mountains.

Sonoma is much better placed for days out. San Francisco is about an hour away, and Napa's towns, Healdsburg's plaza, Petaluma's Victorian riverfront and Sausalito on the bay are all within easy reach, although most outings beyond the city are another wine town.

From Alta the choice is Salt Lake City's Temple Square and museums, Park City's old mining Main Street, or Ogden further north. After that the options run out, the national parks are far to the south, and a storm closing the canyon road can cancel any of these plans.

Both are limited with children, each for its own reason. Alta works if the whole family skis, with a ski school, gentle beginner slopes and rooms beside the lifts. Non-skiers have little to do, though, and the altitude and storm days spent indoors can wear on small children.

Sonoma is calm and safe, and it has a playground on the plaza, a miniature railway park and an African wildlife park near Santa Rosa. Once those are done, the days revolve around tasting rooms and long adult lunches.

Once you are up in Alta, there is little to arrange. Lodges are ski-in, ski-out and a winter shuttle links the base areas. The weak point is the single canyon road from Salt Lake City, which jams on powder mornings and closes after storms.

Sonoma's plaza is easy on foot, and you can walk to several tasting rooms. Everything else is spread across the valley and buses are of little use, so most days need a hire car, a driver or a tour, and someone has to stay sober for the drive.

Alta sells you ski rentals, tuning and outdoor gear, and little else. Sonoma's plaza and arcades are far better for a browse, with independent boutiques, kitchen shops, galleries, local olive oil and cheese, and wine bought straight from the cellar door. In summer there is also a farmers' market, though neither town is somewhere you would go just to shop.

Both are costly, but the bill takes a different shape. In Alta it arrives mostly at once: the lodge room is the big expense, and because it usually comes with dinner and the village has almost nothing else to buy, a ski week costs much the same from one day to the next. Cutting it means sleeping down in the Salt Lake valley and paying instead in time, with a daily ride up the canyon that can be slow or blocked by snow.

Sonoma's cost builds up through the day. A tasting fee here, a long lunch there, another winery after that and the driver or hire car to get between them all add up. That makes it easier to control, since a cheaper bed in a neighbouring town, a picnic among the vines and fewer, well-chosen tastings save money without taking much away from the trip.

Alta has no stage of any kind, so a concert or a play means driving down to Salt Lake City. Sonoma offers a modest summer season, with musicals staged outdoors among the ruins and oaks of Jack London's park, concerts at wineries and the 1930s theatre on the plaza. For serious classical music, the Green Music Center about half an hour away draws touring orchestras.

Alta has little to offer on the spa side. The lodge spas are small, and the larger one is at the neighbouring resort. What it does have is stillness. On storm days, when the canyon road closes and the snow muffles everything, the village becomes a place where there is nothing to do but read, soak and sleep.

Sonoma has far more on offer, though it is less of a bathing destination than its springs suggest. The historic resort spa at Boyes Hot Springs sells day passes to non-guests, but there is no public bathhouse, and nearly every soak or treatment, including those in the valley's inn spas and massage studios, comes at resort prices. It suits a couple who want one spa day in a calm break better than someone travelling mainly for the water.