Anaheim or Taos?

Anaheim is inland, but the coast is close enough to work with. Huntington Beach, with its long surf beach and pier, the Balboa Peninsula at Newport and the coves of Laguna are all about half an hour away by car. The water is cool, so most people wear a wetsuit outside the late-summer months.

Taos has nothing to offer here. At 2,100m and far from any sea, the nearest it gets to a swim is a hotel pool or a hot spring, and the Rio Grande is for rafting.

Anaheim has more range, as long as you leave the resort district and its chains. Little Arabia on Brookhurst Street has Lebanese and Yemeni bakeries and grills, nearby Little Saigon is known for pho and banh mi, and the restored packing district has a food hall.

Taos has one strong local cuisine and not much else. It serves northern New Mexican cooking with red or green chile, sopaipillas and bread from the Pueblo's hornos. That is worth the trip, but a week covers most of the town.

Taos is far ahead. Taos Pueblo, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has multi-storey adobe houses that have been lived in for around a thousand years. The buttressed church at Ranchos de Taos and the art-colony museums, the Harwood and the Millicent Rogers, fill two or three unhurried days.

Anaheim's real landmark is Disneyland itself, which is a genuine piece of American cultural history. Little else survives of its past as a German vineyard and citrus town. For serious museums, such as the Bowers in Santa Ana, you have to drive.

Neither is a place for going out, but Anaheim has a little more life after dark. Bars along the resort promenade stay open after the fireworks, there are a few brewpubs in the centre, and the stadium bars fill on game nights. For clubs you drive to Long Beach or Los Angeles.

Taos winds down soon after dinner. A night out means a margarita in an old adobe hotel bar, a brewery taproom, a saloon with a band, or après-ski at the ski valley in winter.

Taos is one of the strongest outdoor bases in the American West. You can ski at Taos Ski Valley, hike to Wheeler Peak at 4,013m, raft the Taos Box in spring and walk or mountain-bike along the rim of the Rio Grande gorge, all from one small town.

Anaheim's countryside is pleasant rather than dramatic. It has chaparral trails in the Santa Ana Mountains, tide pools at Crystal Cove and whale-watching boats from Newport and Dana Point, which Taos cannot match. Its mild climate allows cycling or paddleboarding all year.

Anaheim has more within reach. Los Angeles, with the Getty and Griffith Observatory, is about an hour away. You can also reach Catalina Island by ferry, Mission San Juan Capistrano to the south and San Diego in about two hours, and trains run to both Los Angeles and San Diego.

The day trips from Taos are fewer but very fine. The High Road to Santa Fe passes Truchas, Las Trampas and Chimayó, and O'Keeffe country around Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch is about an hour and a quarter away. Every one of them needs a car.

This is where the two differ most. Anaheim is one of the world's great family destinations: two Disney parks side by side, Knott's Berry Farm ten minutes away, the Discovery Cube and calm beaches. Its real drawbacks are the long queues at peak times.

Taos works for outdoor families who are happy with ski school in winter, or gentle river floats and horse riding in summer. There is no zoo, aquarium or theme park, and the altitude can wear out young children for the first days.

Getting around is easier in Anaheim, as long as you mostly stay at the parks. Many hotels are within walking distance of the gates, shuttles link the rest, and Metrolink and Amtrak run from the transit centre. Beyond the resort, Orange County is freeway country.

Taos depends on a car almost from arrival. Most visitors fly into Albuquerque and drive for about two and a half hours. Apart from the small plaza area, the Pueblo, the gorge, the ski valley and the villages are spread across a wide valley.

Anaheim gives most shoppers more to work with, though it is buying of a particular kind: large malls, reached one car park at a time. Children will head straight for the Disney merchandise in the parks and along the promenade. A short drive south to Costa Mesa puts the big designer labels under one roof, and the outlets cover everyday buying. What Anaheim lacks is a street to wander or a local market.

Taos turns that around. You shop on foot in the gallery lanes near the plaza, and nearly everything on sale belongs to the region: landscape painting, turquoise and silver, woven rugs, carved saints, and pottery bought from the potters themselves at the Pueblo. For anyone after Southwestern craft, that narrow focus is the whole point. Anyone looking for clothes or a general browse will soon run out of places to go.

Taos is the cheaper of the two. Simple motels and family-run New Mexican diners are fairly priced, although historic inns and ski-valley lodging charge resort rates in high season. Spring and late autumn are the gentlest times for the budget.

In Anaheim, multi-day park tickets, hotels close to the gates and food inside the parks push the cost up quickly. Staying in a motel a short drive away and eating in the Vietnamese and Middle Eastern districts brings it down. In both places a hire car adds to the bill.

Anaheim offers more nights out. The Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa has the Pacific Symphony, touring Broadway productions and ballet, the indoor arena books major tours, and the parks put on polished water shows and stage musicals.

Taos has less on, but what it has is rare. On feast days such as San Gerónimo in late September, the public may watch the traditional dances at Taos Pueblo under strict rules. A summer chamber music festival and a small community arts centre fill out the year.

Taos is made for slowing down. The historic mineral pools at Ojo Caliente are about fifty minutes away, there are primitive hot springs beside the Rio Grande that you reach on foot, and the town has yoga studios and retreat centres. The silence of the plateau does the rest.

In Anaheim, rest mostly means a day by the hotel pool between park days, or a scrub at one of the Korean-style day spas in the suburbs. The proper resort spas are down on the clifftops at Laguna Beach and Dana Point.