Aspen or Laguna Beach?

For beaches, this is not a contest. Aspen is days from any sea, and swimming means a cold reservoir, a raft on the Roaring Fork or a hotel pool.

Laguna Beach is built around the water. Main Beach has volleyball nets, Crescent Bay and Shaw's Cove lie to the north, and stairways lead down to Victoria Beach, Thousand Steps and the wide sand at Aliso. The water is clear enough for snorkelling around the reefs. Late summer is the time to swim, and the lifeguarded beaches are the safe choice where currents vary.

The two eat out at a similar level and share the same gaps: no local cuisine and little that is cheap. Aspen's strength is polished downtown dining rooms, steak, sushi and big wine lists. Après-ski on the terraces at the base of Aspen Mountain is a ritual of its own, and the Food & Wine Classic comes every June. In the quiet spring and autumn weeks, though, many kitchens close.

Laguna is more casual and built around the ocean. Expect fish tacos, poke, surfers' breakfast cafés and seafood with a sunset view. For real variety, Laguna has the advantage of the Vietnamese, Mexican and Korean cooking a short drive inland in Orange County.

Neither town has major museums or landmarks, and each takes a morning or an afternoon, but the history is different. Aspen's is silver mining: red-brick Victorian blocks, the Wheeler Opera House, painted miners' cottages in the West End and Herbert Bayer's modernist Aspen Institute campus. The ghost town of Ashcroft lies up the valley.

Laguna's story is an art colony. The Laguna Art Museum focuses on California painting, and plein air galleries line Coast Highway and Forest Avenue. Its biggest historic sight, the mission at San Juan Capistrano, lies outside town.

In winter, Aspen has a real night out. Après-ski moves from the slopeside decks to downtown bars and lounges. Around Christmas, New Year and the X Games, hotel bars and a few small clubs stay busy late. Summer is mellower, with drinks on patios, and the shoulder seasons are dead.

Laguna Beach never gets close to that. There are a few beach and dive bars, wine bars and hotel terraces, no clubs, and quiet streets before midnight. A proper night out means driving to Newport Beach, Costa Mesa or Los Angeles.

Both towns are mainly about the outdoors, but Aspen's setting is far grander. It sits in a valley ringed by the Elk Mountains, with four ski areas, backcountry huts and summer routes to summits above 4,000m. It also has the reflected peaks of the Maroon Bells, the drive over Independence Pass and aspen groves turning gold in late September.

Laguna's outdoors are gentler and turn towards the sea. There are chaparral ridges in Laguna Coast Wilderness Park and Crystal Cove, a coastline that is entirely a marine protected area, kelp and reefs for shore diving, kayaking, dolphins and grey whales passing in winter.

Laguna Beach has far more within reach. Mission San Juan Capistrano is about twenty minutes away. Huntington Beach and Dana Point are along the coast, and a ferry crosses to Catalina Island. San Diego, Los Angeles and the Temecula wine country each make a full day out by car.

From Aspen, the options are small mountain towns: Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Marble, Redstone and, in summer only, Leadville over Independence Pass. Pleasant drives, but not major sights, and winter shortens the list.

Laguna Beach is the easier choice with children, as long as the plan centres on the shore. There are lifeguarded beaches, tide pools full of crabs and anemones and easy snorkelling, and Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are about forty minutes away. The catches are long stairways down to the coves and scarce summer parking.

Aspen suits one kind of family trip well: skiing. Buttermilk and Snowmass have gentle slopes and good ski schools, and in summer there are alpine coasters and ropes courses. Otherwise there is little built for children, and the altitude can tire young ones for the first days.

Aspen is much easier without a car. The flat downtown grid takes minutes to walk, free buses link all four ski mountains, a summer shuttle runs to the Maroon Bells, and the airport is just outside town. Only trips beyond the valley need a car, and winter storms can close those roads.

In Laguna, only the village and the free coastal trolley are manageable on foot. Everything else, from the theme parks to the airports, means freeway driving, with no rail, slow buses and car parks that fill early on summer weekends.

Shopping is about equal in both towns, but the goods are very different. Aspen's few pedestrian blocks hold international luxury labels, high-end ski wear, jewellers and Western leather and fur, and window-shopping is part of the evening.

Laguna sells art rather than fashion. There are plein air paintings and glass along the gallery rows, beachwear and home-decor shops on Forest Avenue, and handmade crafts at the summer art festivals. For designer brands, shoppers drive half an hour to the malls of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa.

Both are among the costliest places to vacation in the country, and neither suits a tight budget. Laguna is slightly less punishing, because its beaches, trails, tide pools and trolley are free, though hotels and paid parking still add up.

In Aspen, nearly everything you would come for costs a lot, from ski-season lodging to lift tickets and ski school. Budget visitors to either town stay elsewhere and come in for the day: Glenwood Springs or Carbondale for Aspen, inland Orange County for Laguna.

Aspen has more to hear. For eight weeks each summer, the Aspen Music Festival fills the Benedict Music Tent with orchestral, chamber and opera concerts, and people listen for free from the lawn outside. The Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and the Wheeler Opera House add to the programme.

Laguna's highlight is a single tradition: the Pageant of the Masters, where performers recreate famous paintings on stage in a canyon amphitheatre. The Laguna Playhouse runs plays all year. For symphony or opera, you drive to Costa Mesa.

Both are calm places to slow down, and both rely mainly on resort spas. Aspen has something Laguna lacks: mineral pools and cave vapour baths at Glenwood Springs an hour away, plus Conundrum Hot Springs at the end of a long hike. It is restful in summer, less so in the full ski season.

Laguna's calm comes from the ocean. There are clifftop morning walks, yoga studios in the village, spas with sea views and long sunsets over the water, and that mood holds through most of the year.