Bend or Napa?

Neither place has a beach, but Bend at least has summer water to play in. People float through town on inner tubes down the Deschutes, and the Cascade Lakes, such as Elk and Sparks, are good for a bracing, clear swim in August.

In Napa, swimming mostly means the hotel pool. The Sonoma coast is cold and rough, and Lake Berryessa is a drive into the eastern hills.

Napa is in another league for eating and drinking. Tasting rooms line Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail, Yountville and St Helena have some of the most celebrated restaurants in the country, and the Oxbow Public Market keeps oysters, cheese and bread under one roof.

Bend's strength is beer: walking or cycling between brewpubs and eating at food-cart pods around a fire pit. It also has some sound farm-to-table cooking downtown, but the range runs out fast, and there is very little international food or fine dining.

Both are thin on sights, and an afternoon or a day covers each. Bend's best stop is the High Desert Museum, which has live animals, Indigenous heritage and pioneer history, alongside the old mill smokestacks and the Tower Theatre. Napa offers Victorian First Street, the 1880 opera house, contemporary art at di Rosa and old stone wineries up the valley.

Bend has the more sociable evenings, though both towns go quiet early. Its taprooms and food-cart courtyards fill up with people still in hiking gear, and downtown has a short run of dive bars and cocktail bars.

Napa's night out is a long dinner and a glass at a wine bar on First Street. For anything later, people go to San Francisco.

Bend sits where high desert meets the volcanic Cascades, and few places offer so much rugged terrain within an easy drive. Mount Bachelor's ski slopes are about half an hour up the Cascade Lakes Highway, which also leads to alpine lakes and wilderness trailheads. The climbing walls of Smith Rock, about forty minutes north, and the lava fields and obsidian of Newberry make further days out.

Napa's landscape is gentler and more cultivated. You get vineyards between two ranges, dawn balloon flights, a flat cycling trail, the redwoods at Bothe-Napa and the climb up Mount St Helena. It is lovely, but it is scenery to enjoy between tastings rather than a reason to come.

Napa is far better placed. Yountville, St Helena and Calistoga are short hops, Sonoma's plaza and mission are about half an hour away, and Healdsburg and the Russian River make a second wine day out. San Francisco, Sausalito and Berkeley are about an hour away, partly by ferry.

From Bend, outings lead mostly into landscape. Sisters and Sunriver are pleasant, but the ranching towns around them have little to see, and Crater Lake is a long day's drive.

Bend is much easier with children. River floats, the lava cave, the animals at the High Desert Museum, the Sunriver observatory and Mount Bachelor's beginner area fill a week, as long as the family likes being outdoors.

Napa is built for adults tasting wine. The animal park in Vallejo, the geyser near Calistoga and hotel pools help, but long drives between wineries and the summer heat wear children out.

Both need a car beyond a small, walkable centre, but Bend's is a little easier to manage. Its riverside path links downtown and the Old Mill District, quiet streets and trails make cycling natural, and a seasonal shuttle runs up to the ski slopes.

Napa's problem is the wine itself. The wineries are spread along some 50km of road, and since tasting and driving don't mix, many visitors pay for a driver or a tour.

Napa has more worth bringing home. Most visitors buy cases of wine and have them shipped from the cellars, and there are olive oil and kitchenware at the market hall, design stores on St Helena's main street and an outlet mall.

Bend's best buys are practical: ski, bike, climbing and fishing gear, with consignment shops for used equipment. Oregon's lack of sales tax helps a little.

Neither is cheap, but Napa is much more expensive. Rooms there are priced for luxury travel, tastings at the famous estates cost a lot, and a driver for the day adds more on top.

Bend's costs rise on summer and ski weekends, and you will need a hire car. Still, its trails and rivers are mostly free, food carts keep meals cheaper, and midweek stays in spring or autumn bring the cost down noticeably.

Both towns have a modest calendar that peaks in summer, but in different styles. Bend's centrepiece is its riverside amphitheatre for touring rock, folk and country acts, plus free concerts in the parks and bands in the brewpubs.

Napa leans more refined. A classical festival plays at wineries and resorts, and the old opera house and an Art Deco theatre carry on through the year. For opera or an orchestra, you go to San Francisco.

Napa makes relaxation part of the trip. Calistoga's hot springs and volcanic mud baths have a long history, and the resorts in Carneros and the hills nearly all have large spas, often using grape seed in their treatments.

In Bend, relaxing mostly means a hot tub after a ski or bike day, a resort spa near Sunriver, or a hike to the primitive hot springs at Paulina Lake. People come to Bend to be active, not to rest.