Anaheim or Beaver Creek?

Anaheim is inland, but the Orange County coast is about half an hour away. Choose Huntington for a long surf beach, Newport for the Balboa Peninsula and its harbour, or Laguna for small rocky coves. Most visitors treat the coast as a half-day break from the parks, and you will need a car to get there.

At Beaver Creek, swimming means a heated hotel pool or the small, chilly lake down in Avon. If the sea matters at all, Anaheim is the only choice.

Food is where Anaheim pulls ahead, once you leave the resort district. Little Arabia on Brookhurst Street has Lebanese and Yemeni grills and sweet shops, and nearby Little Saigon is known for pho and banh mi. Both offer the kind of food a mountain resort cannot.

Beaver Creek serves polished mountain cooking: elk, Colorado lamb and trout. The most memorable meal may be a dinner at an on-mountain lodge reached by snowcat sleigh. The menus feel similar from one restaurant to the next, and for everyday eating you go down to Avon and Edwards.

Neither place suits a culture trip, but Anaheim has more to offer. Disneyland is a real piece of American cultural history, and by car you can reach the Bowers Museum, the Nixon Presidential Library and the glass Christ Cathedral.

Beaver Creek was built as a ski resort around 1980. Its stone and timber village and the outdoor art around the plaza take about an hour to see, and for any history you need to drive to the old mining towns.

In Anaheim most evenings end with the park fireworks, but the bars on the promenade between the parks stay open afterwards. Central Anaheim has a few brewpubs and cocktail bars, and on hockey and baseball nights the bars by the stadiums fill up. For a proper night out, you have to drive to Long Beach or Los Angeles.

Beaver Creek winds down even earlier. Après-ski by a fire pit on the plaza is the high point, a few hotel lounges stay open after dinner, and anyone who wants a late bar drives to Vail.

This is Beaver Creek's great strength. Its ski runs climb to about 3,500m and are known for being uncrowded, and Vail's huge terrain is close by. In summer you can hike or ride mountain bikes through aspen forest, raft the Eagle and Colorado Rivers or drive to Glenwood Canyon. The altitude is the one drawback.

Around Anaheim, the landscape is pleasant rather than dramatic. There are chaparral trails in the Santa Ana Mountains and tide pools at Crystal Cove, and boats go out to see whales off Newport and Dana Point, but you need a car for all of it.

Anaheim is the far better base for day trips. Los Angeles is about an hour away, with Hollywood, the Getty and Griffith Observatory. Ferries cross to Catalina Island, Mission San Juan Capistrano is to the south, and San Diego is about two hours down the coast.

From Beaver Creek, the outings are other mountain towns: Vail, the Victorian silver-mining town of Leadville, gold-rush Breckenridge and the spa town of Glenwood Springs. They make pleasant days out, but they are similar in character.

Anaheim is one of the world's great family destinations. Two Disney parks and Knott's Berry Farm are within easy reach of hundreds of family hotels, and the dry weather means few days are lost to rain. The drawbacks are long queues and needing a car for anything outside the resort.

Beaver Creek does family ski weeks very well, with a large ski school, a car-free plaza where older children can roam freely and warm cookies when the lifts close. Once the slopes or the summer ropes course are done, there is little else for children to do.

Beaver Creek is the easier of the two, as long as you stay in the resort. The village is pedestrian, outdoor escalators link its levels, many lodgings are ski-in ski-out, and free shuttles run down to Avon. The catch is getting there: the drive from Denver crosses mountain passes that winter storms can close.

In Anaheim, you can walk or take the shuttles if you only visit the parks. Orange County beyond them is built for cars, though trains from the transit centre near the stadium make Los Angeles and San Diego easy to reach.

Anaheim offers more, though it is all mall shopping done by car. Costa Mesa has one of the country's largest luxury malls, outlet centres cover the mid-range, and Disney merchandise is a draw in its own right.

Beaver Creek's shopping is a small, expensive cluster around the plaza. It sells technical ski wear, western boots and leather, and has galleries selling bronze sculpture and landscape painting. It is fine for browsing on a rest day, and for anything ordinary you go down the valley.

Neither is cheap, but Anaheim is clearly the easier on the wallet. Its expense is concentrated in a few places: the park tickets, the hotels nearest the gates and food inside the parks. Leave the resort and Orange County charges what the rest of Southern California does, so a motel a few minutes' drive away and suburban restaurants bring the daily cost down, though the car you need is an extra expense.

Beaver Creek has no cheaper side to fall back on, because the whole resort is built for a wealthy clientele. Lodging, lift passes, rental gear, ski school and meals are all expensive, so the costs add up every day. Sleeping down the valley or coming in summer makes the bill smaller, but it never makes it modest.

The two are about even, but the offer is very different. Around Anaheim, there is something on all year. The Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa has the Pacific Symphony, touring Broadway shows and ballet, the arena hosts big pop and rock tours, and Disney puts on its own night-time spectaculars.

Beaver Creek's highlight is summer, when Bravo! Vail brings leading orchestras to an open-air amphitheatre and the dance festival and jazz series fill other evenings. Outside those weeks, the intimate Vilar Performing Arts Center keeps a modest programme going.

Beaver Creek is clearly the more restful place. Its resort spas are among the largest in the Rockies, with outdoor hot tubs in the snow, and the village is quiet and car-free. The historic hot springs pool at Glenwood Springs, about an hour away, makes an easy day of bathing.

Long park days in Anaheim, with early starts and crowds, are tiring. Most visitors make do with a day by the hotel pool or a Korean-style day spa, and anyone who wants proper calm drives to the clifftop resorts at Laguna Beach or Dana Point.