Anaheim or Phoenix?

Anaheim is inland, but Huntington Beach's wide surf sand, the Balboa Peninsula at Newport and the coves of Laguna Beach are about half an hour away by car. The water is cool for much of the year, yet an afternoon on the beach between park days is easy to fit in.

Phoenix has no coast within several hours. Swimming there means desert reservoirs such as Saguaro Lake, tubing on the Salt River in summer, and above all hotel pools with lazy rivers. Anyone who wants sea and sand should choose Anaheim.

The two are close on food, and in both the good meals are found away from the tourist zones. Anaheim's strength is immigrant cooking: Lebanese and Yemeni grills along Brookhurst Street's Little Arabia and the pho and banh mi of Little Saigon nearby. The resort district itself is mostly chains and park counters.

Phoenix leans on its own region instead, with Sonoran carne asada, paper-thin flour tortillas, bacon-wrapped hot dogs from evening carts and a strong name for wood-fired pizza. In both cities eating well usually means a drive.

Phoenix has noticeably more to see. The Heard Museum's Native American collections, the Musical Instrument Museum and Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West are each worth a half day, and Pueblo Grande adds the remains of ancient Hohokam canals.

Anaheim's cultural landmark is Disneyland itself, the one park Walt Disney saw completed, plus the old packing houses and the Mother Colony House. Its museums, such as the Bowers in Santa Ana and the Nixon Library, are a drive away. Neither city has an old centre to wander.

Evenings in Anaheim usually end with the park fireworks and a drink on the resort promenade, with a few brewpubs in the centre and sports crowds on game nights. Going out properly means driving to Long Beach or Los Angeles.

Phoenix has real choices, though they are spread out: the clubs and rooftop bars of Old Town Scottsdale, the student bars of Mill Avenue in Tempe, and cocktail and craft beer bars around Roosevelt Row. Pick one district for the night and take a ride-hail home.

Phoenix has the more striking setting. Desert peaks such as Camelback and Piestewa rise from the suburbs, South Mountain and the saguaro forest of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve offer long trails, and the Superstitions and Sedona's red rock lie further out. In summer the heat limits hiking to early mornings.

Around Anaheim the outdoors is gentler and needs a car: chaparral trails in the Santa Ana Mountains, tide pools at Crystal Cove, and whale-watching boats from Newport and Dana Point. What it has in its favour is a mild climate that allows all of this in any month.

Anaheim makes the better base for excursions. Los Angeles, with Hollywood, Griffith Observatory and the Getty, is about an hour away, and Catalina Island is a ferry ride from Long Beach or Newport. The mission at San Juan Capistrano, the Temecula vineyards and San Diego all fit into a day.

From Phoenix the distances are longer and the choice thinner: the hillside mining town of Jerome, Prescott's Western saloon street, Montezuma Castle on the way to Sedona, and Tucson with Mission San Xavier del Bac. The Grand Canyon is too far for a comfortable day.

Few places anywhere match Anaheim for children. The two Disney parks stand side by side within walking distance of family hotels, Knott's Berry Farm is ten minutes away, and many families never need to go further.

Phoenix works for families too, with its zoo, science centre, water parks and pool resorts, plus spring training baseball in March. But the attractions are scattered across a huge metro area, and from June to September the heat makes outdoor time risky for young children.

Both are car cities, but Anaheim is easier for a visit centred on the parks. Its resort district is compact, many hotels are a walk from the Disney gates, shuttles cover the rest, and trains from the station near the stadium run to Los Angeles and San Diego.

Phoenix gives you less help without a car. A light rail line links the airport, downtown and Tempe, but Scottsdale and the hiking areas lie far apart along wide arterial roads, and summer heat makes even short walks hard. On the plus side, driving and parking are easy.

Shopping in both cities happens in malls, and neither has much in the way of street markets or independent shops. Anaheim's draws are the Disney merchandise around the parks and a very large luxury mall in Costa Mesa, about 20km south.

Phoenix has its own luxury malls in Scottsdale and near the Biltmore, and it also has something Anaheim lacks. You can buy Navajo and Zuni silver and turquoise, Hopi carvings, pottery and rugs, best from museum shops and galleries, as well as Western wear in Old Town Scottsdale.

Phoenix is the easier city on the budget. Costs sit in the middle of the American range, resort rates drop sharply in summer, chain hotels along the freeways are good value all year, and hiking, its main activity, is mostly free. Winter and spring are the expensive seasons.

In Anaheim, multi-day park tickets take up most of the budget, hotels near the gates charge for their location, and food inside the parks is expensive. Motels a short drive out and the eateries of Little Saigon and Little Arabia help. In both cities a hire car adds to the bill.

The two are roughly even here, but they offer different kinds of evening. In Anaheim most entertainment comes from Disney's parades, water shows and stage musicals. For a formal night out there is the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa, home of the Pacific Symphony and touring Broadway shows.

Phoenix keeps its own opera and ballet companies and a symphony at Symphony Hall, with touring shows in Frank Lloyd Wright's round ASU Gammage in Tempe and concerts in the Musical Instrument Museum's intimate hall. Its season goes quiet in summer.

For rest, Phoenix is the stronger of the two because the resorts are a reason to go in their own right, not an extra on the side, and their treatments draw on desert sage, clay and agave. Rest there happens in private, though. There are no historic baths or hot springs open to the public, the best of it comes at resort rates, and it is at its best from autumn to spring, since summer heat makes even a sunlounger hard work by midday.

Anaheim has no bathing tradition either, and days timed around park opening hours leave little room to unwind. The Korean-style day spas in the suburbs, with saunas and scrubs, make a pleasant afternoon, but anyone who wants real quiet ends up on the coast at Laguna Beach or Dana Point.