Aspen or Palm Desert?

Neither town has a beach, so the difference is in what replaces it. In Aspen it is cold water: alpine lakes, small reservoirs and rafting on the Roaring Fork River, with a hotel pool if you actually want to swim.

In Palm Desert the pool is the main event. Almost every resort and rental has one, often heated in winter, and lounging under the palms is a large part of any stay. The Pacific is a full day's outing two hours over the mountains.

Aspen is the better place to eat, at least at the top end. Its downtown grid has chef-led dining rooms, sushi and steak counters and serious wine lists, après-ski on the terraces at the foot of Aspen Mountain is a ritual of its own, and in June the Food & Wine Classic comes to town. The weak points are the lack of anything cheap and the kitchens that shut in the quiet weeks of spring and autumn.

Palm Desert's resort restaurants on El Paseo are reliable but hard to tell apart. The food with real local character is a drive east, at the family-run taquerias and bakeries of Indio and Coachella and at the date groves selling date shakes.

Neither is a sightseeing destination, and each fills an afternoon or a morning or two. Aspen at least has a historic townscape of its own: red-brick silver-boom blocks around the Wheeler Opera House, painted miners' cottages in the West End, Herbert Bayer's modernist Aspen Institute campus and the ghost town of Ashcroft nearby.

Palm Desert was built after the Second World War and has little history to show. Its highlight is the outdoor sculpture garden at the branch of the Palm Springs Art Museum. For mid-century modern architecture and the main museum, you need to go to Palm Springs.

Aspen has the livelier evenings, especially in ski season. The night starts on the slopeside decks as the lifts close, moves into downtown bars and lounges, and on the Christmas, New Year and X Games weeks runs late in hotel bars and a few small clubs. In summer it is mostly drinks on patios, and in spring and autumn the town is quiet.

Palm Desert winds down early, with wine bars and patio happy hours around El Paseo for a crowd of golfers and retirees. A late night means driving to a tribal casino or to downtown Palm Springs and its gay scene.

Both are built around landscape, but Aspen's is on a bigger scale and works all year. Winter brings four separate ski mountains connected by free shuttle buses, from gentle Buttermilk to the steep expert terrain of Highlands and the sheer size of Snowmass, plus huts for overnight backcountry tours. In summer you can hike to the Maroon Bells and over high passes, mountain-bike, raft or fly-fish the Roaring Fork, and watch the aspen groves turn gold in late September.

Palm Desert's outdoors is desert scenery: trails climbing straight into the Santa Rosa Mountains, fan-palm oases in the Indian Canyons, and boulders and night skies in Joshua Tree an hour away, with golf courses everywhere else. It only works from October to May.

Palm Desert has the wider choice of outings. Palm Springs is twenty minutes away, Temecula's wine country an hour and a half, and there is cool mountain air in Idyllwild, the old film-set town of Pioneertown and the painted hillside of Salvation Mountain near the Salton Sea.

From Aspen the trips are to small mountain towns: Glenwood Springs, Carbondale, Redstone and Marble up the Crystal River valley, and Leadville's Victorian main street over Independence Pass. The pass closes in winter, which cuts the list down further.

Both work for families in a narrow way. Aspen's strength is learning to ski: Buttermilk and Snowmass have good ski schools and kids' areas, and in summer the lifts lead to alpine coasters and ropes courses. Watch for the altitude, which can tire small children for the first day or two.

Palm Desert has the Living Desert, a large zoo and botanical garden with giraffes and cheetahs, and resort pools with slides. Every other outing means a drive, though, and in summer the middle of the day is too hot for young children.

Aspen is far easier to manage on foot. The flat downtown grid takes minutes to cross and the gondola leaves from its southern edge. Free buses run between the ski mountains, and a valley bus runs down to Glenwood Springs, with a summer shuttle up to the Maroon Bells. You only need a car to go beyond the valley, and winter storms can close the roads out.

Palm Desert is a spread of resorts, gated communities and shopping centres along wide boulevards, and El Paseo is about the only stretch made for walking. The buses are slow, so you will need a hire car, though the roads are clear and parking is easy.

Both are luxury shopping towns, with designer boutiques, jewellers and art galleries along a few smart streets. Aspen's pedestrian malls add high-end ski wear and Western leather and fur, but nothing much below the luxury end.

Palm Desert covers more price levels. Beyond the boutiques of El Paseo there is a large mall of familiar chains, a big designer outlet centre half an hour west, and vintage and mid-century furniture shops in Palm Springs.

Aspen is the far dearer trip, and the gap is widest in winter, when the ski day is a large cost of its own. Lift tickets, ski school for the children and drinks on the après-ski terraces all come on top of rooms priced for a very wealthy crowd. Summer takes some of the edge off, and the free buses mean getting around costs nothing, but nothing in the valley is cheap.

Palm Desert costs what an ordinary American resort costs, and the money goes on different things. Rooms are dearest in the winter high season and around the big valley events, and the spending that climbs fastest is the kind you choose: rounds of golf and spa treatments. Its quiet season brings prices down much further than Aspen's quiet months do, though the heat also limits what you can do.

Aspen has the stronger programme, centred on summer. The Aspen Music Festival brings leading soloists and orchestras to the Benedict Music Tent, where you can listen for free from the lawn outside. Jazz, the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet and year-round shows at the Wheeler Opera House add to it.

Palm Desert's main stage is the McCallum Theatre, which hosts touring Broadway shows, ballet and well-known singers through the winter. Casinos and an arena put on big concerts, and Coachella and Stagecoach take over the polo grounds in Indio for a few spring weekends.

Palm Desert is the better place to unwind, because rest is the point of the whole valley. Resort spas, long afternoons by the pool and dry, sunny winters set the pace, and Desert Hot Springs half an hour north fills its pools straight from natural mineral springs.

Aspen is restful in summer and the quiet seasons, with clear air, riverside paths, hotel spas and the big hot-spring pools of Glenwood Springs an hour away. In peak ski season the town is too busy to feel calm.