Bend or Seattle?

Neither city is somewhere to go for the beach, but Seattle has more to offer. It has real sandy strips at Alki and Golden Gardens for bonfires and sunset views of the Olympics, though the Sound is too cold for more than a paddle. Its lifeguarded Lake Washington beaches warm to swimmable temperatures in high summer.

Bend's water time is about the river and the mountains. You float an inner tube down the Deschutes through town, or take a bracing dip in Elk Lake or Sparks Lake in August. It is fun, but the water is colder and the season shorter.

Seattle is the better place to eat by some distance. Oysters, Dungeness crab and wild salmon from the surrounding waters anchor the menus, and Pike Place Market is a full morning of tasting. The Chinatown-International District and the suburbs add serious Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese and Korean cooking, and Washington wines join the craft beer.

In Bend, beer sets the tone. You spend the day moving between brewpubs, eat at food-cart pods in the evening, and find a few good farm-to-table rooms downtown and in the Old Mill District. After a few nights the choice starts to feel narrow, especially if you want anything international.

Seattle gives you two or three full days of sights. You get the Space Needle and Chihuly glass at Seattle Center, the Museum of Pop Culture, the Seattle Art Museum and its Asian collection in Volunteer Park, and the vast Museum of Flight. Pioneer Square's post-1889 blocks add some history.

Bend has the High Desert Museum, with its live animals and Indigenous and pioneer exhibits, which is genuinely worth half a day. Add the old stone schoolhouse museum, the Tower Theatre and the mill smokestacks, and you have seen the town in an afternoon.

Seattle has a proper night out. Pike and Pine on Capitol Hill are lined with cocktail bars, dive bars and dance floors, and the street is the centre of the city's LGBTQ+ scene. Belltown pulls a younger club crowd and Ballard has taproom crawls. Even so, last call comes at 2am and clubs are few.

Bend's evenings are friendly but short. Taprooms and food-cart courtyards fill early with people in hiking boots, a handful of downtown bars stay lively on summer weekends, and dancing late hardly comes into it.

Both are superb for the outdoors, and the difference is distance. Bend puts everything at your door. Mountain-bike singletrack begins at the edge of town, Mount Bachelor is half an hour up the road, Smith Rock's climbing is under an hour away, and the Newberry lava fields and caves are close by, all in dry, open high-desert country where you can ski and bike on the same spring day.

Seattle's wild places are bigger but further out. Mount Rainier's glaciers and meadows are a two-hour drive, and the Olympic rainforest lies across the Sound. In the city itself you can kayak Lake Union, walk the bluffs of Discovery Park or ride a ferry with a chance of orcas. Water plays a much larger part here, and so does winter rain.

Seattle has the better day trips, and many of them go by water. The ferry crosses to Bainbridge Island in half an hour, and you can carry on to Whidbey's farm villages or Victorian Port Townsend. By road, the Woodinville tasting rooms and Tacoma's Museum of Glass are both easy outings.

From Bend, the outings are mostly about landscape. Sisters makes a pleasant western main street, Sunriver has its observatory and the Warm Springs museum covers the region's tribes. The ranching towns around them have little to see, and Crater Lake is a long day in the car.

Children do well in both, but the days look different. Seattle has the classic city attractions: Woodland Park Zoo, the aquarium, the Pacific Science Center and the Museum of Flight's space shuttle trainer. These give you indoor plans for wet days, though the hills down to the waterfront are hard going with a pushchair.

Bend suits families who like being outside. They can float the Deschutes, explore the Lava River Cave by lantern, meet the otters at the High Desert Museum and take ski lessons on Bachelor's beginner slopes. There is no zoo or aquarium, though, and almost every outing needs the car.

Seattle is much easier without a car. Link light rail runs from the airport through downtown to Capitol Hill, and one tap card also covers buses, the monorail and the ferries. Water and hills still make cross-town trips slower than they look.

Bend's centre is small, flat enough for cycling and linked to the Old Mill District by a riverside path. The trailheads, lakes and Smith Rock are what bring people here, though, and reaching them means driving. Most visitors fly into the small regional airport at Redmond.

Both cities are good for outdoor gear, but Seattle goes much further. It has department stores downtown, records and vintage clothing on Capitol Hill, Fremont's Sunday market and Ballard's design shops, with luxury brands across the lake in Bellevue.

Bend is a practical stop. Its ski, bike, climbing and fishing shops and the second-hand gear stores are excellent. Beyond them there are chain stores in the old mill buildings and a few streets of boutiques, and Oregon's lack of sales tax is a small bonus.

Neither is cheap, but Bend is easier on the wallet. Most of the trails, rivers and parks cost little or nothing, food carts keep meals down, and there is no sales tax. Hiring a car is the main extra, and rooms jump in summer and on ski weekends.

Seattle is pricier on most counts. Downtown hotels are expensive through the summer and cruise season, restaurant bills grow with tax and tips, and the big attractions charge high admissions. Staying near the light rail in an outer neighbourhood is the usual way to save.

Seattle is a real performing-arts city. Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet share McCaw Hall, the symphony plays a full season at Benaroya Hall, and the 5th Avenue and Paramount stage musicals. The city of Hendrix and grunge also has bands playing in clubs in Belltown, Capitol Hill and Ballard on most nights.

Bend's stage is mostly a summer affair. Touring acts play the riverside amphitheatre in the Old Mill District and there are free concerts in the parks. For the rest of the year, the Tower Theatre and a community symphony carry the calendar, and there is no opera or professional orchestra.

Seattle has a slight edge for a restful stay. It has hotel spas, Korean-style bathhouses in the suburbs with steam rooms and scrubs, and a slower coffee-house rhythm, with quiet hours in the Japanese Garden and the Arboretum.

In Bend, relaxing mostly means a hot tub after a day on the mountain or a resort spa around Sunriver. Its most unusual option is the primitive Paulina Lake hot springs in the Newberry caldera, which you reach on foot.