Austin or Taos?

Neither city is anywhere near a coast, but Austin at least has a proper swimming culture. Barton Springs and Deep Eddy give cold spring-fed dips in town, and Lake Travis offers warm water and boat days in summer.

Taos has nothing like it. The Rio Grande is for rafting rather than swimming, the mountain lakes stay cold, and a hotel pool or a hot spring is as close as it gets.

Austin is the far better place to eat. Post-oak brisket, breakfast tacos, queso and frozen margaritas are done with real skill, food trucks and beer gardens make casual eating easy, and East Austin and South Congress add more ambitious kitchens.

Taos has one strong card, northern New Mexican cooking built around red and green chile, plus horno bread from the Pueblo. Beyond that regional kitchen the choice is small, and a week covers most of it.

Taos has the stronger sights, mostly thanks to Taos Pueblo, a World Heritage site of adobe homes still lived in after about a thousand years. Add the buttressed church at Ranchos de Taos and the small museums of the old art colony, and you have something no Texas city can match for atmosphere and depth of history.

Austin's highlights are institutional rather than historic. The pink granite Capitol and the university museums, with the Gutenberg Bible at the Harry Ransom Center, are worth a day or two, but the older streetscape is thin.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Austin's student crowd and warm nights feed three distinct scenes: rowdy Sixth Street, the bungalow bars of Rainey Street and the mezcal and dive bars of the east side. The festival weeks turn the whole centre into one long night out.

Taos offers a margarita in an adobe hotel bar, a brewery taproom or a saloon band, and après-ski in winter. Most evenings end not long after dinner.

Taos is the outdoor destination here, with mountains above 4,000m, a deep river gorge and a ski valley half an hour away. Summer hikes to Wheeler Peak and alpine lakes, spring rafting on the Rio Grande and autumn aspens give it a full year of high-country activity, with only the altitude to get used to.

Austin's outdoors is gentler and starts in town: the Barton Creek Greenbelt, paddling on Lady Bird Lake, the bat flight at dusk and Enchanted Rock within a drive. It has no mountains, though, and summer heat restricts it to early mornings.

The two are evenly matched for outings, and in both a car is required, but the flavour differs. From Austin the days out are Texan: San Antonio's Alamo and Spanish missions, German-founded Fredericksburg with its wineries, dance-hall Gruene and barbecue in Lockhart.

From Taos the drives are about landscape and old Hispanic New Mexico. The High Road passes through mountain villages and Chimayó on the way to Santa Fe, and Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch lead into O'Keeffe country.

Austin is easier with children. Zilker Park's lawns, miniature train and pool, the Thinkery and the Bullock museum's IMAX give plenty to do, and the theme parks and waterparks of San Antonio and New Braunfels are about an hour away.

Taos works for outdoorsy families who come for ski school or gentle river floats, but nothing in town is built for children. The altitude can also wear out younger ones for the first few days.

Both are car towns, but Austin is a little less demanding. Its walkable downtown, buses, single commuter rail line and rental scooters cover part of a stay.

In Taos only the small plaza area is walkable, and everything else, from the Pueblo to the ski valley, means driving. Most visitors also face a drive of about two and a half hours from Albuquerque airport.

Neither city suits a fashion trip, and both reward specialist buying instead. Austin's South Congress and east side are for vintage clothing, cowboy boots and Western shirts, with the big brands out in a mall on the city's edge.

Taos is all art and craft: plaza galleries, turquoise and silver jewellery, Rio Grande weaving and micaceous pottery bought directly from Pueblo makers.

Taos is somewhat gentler on the budget. Simple motels and New Mexican diners are fairly priced, and spring and late autumn between the ski and summer seasons are especially easy, although historic inns and ski-valley lodging charge resort rates.

Austin's downtown hotels cost what big-city rooms cost and climb steeply in festival weeks. Cheap tacos and free sights like the Greenbelt help, but in both places car hire adds a lot to the total.

Austin is in a different league for live music, with several acts a night across Red River Street, South Congress and the honky-tonks, from blues and indie to Texas country. The Long Center adds symphony, opera and ballet on a modest scale.

Taos has far less to attend, but what it has is unusual: the Pueblo's feast-day dances, watched quietly and without cameras, and a summer chamber music festival.

Taos is the more restorative of the two. Ojo Caliente's outdoor mineral pools are under an hour away, there are hot springs beside the river at the bottom of the gorge, and retreat centres trade on the valley's quiet and spiritual reputation.

Austin has good yoga, day spas and a few lakeside spa resorts in the Hill Country, and away from the bar streets its pace is easy. It has no hot springs or bathing tradition to match.