Big Bear Lake or San Jose?

Neither is a beach destination, but San Jose gives you the better day by the water. A drive over the Santa Cruz Mountains brings you to the sandy, sheltered beaches of Santa Cruz and Capitola, which have real surf-town character, although the Pacific is too cold for more than a paddle without a wetsuit.

Big Bear Lake's water is actually the warmer of the two in summer, but the shore is mostly rocky. Supervised swimming is limited to the small beach at Meadow Park, and a swim there is a quick cool-off between boat trips rather than the point of the day.

San Jose is far ahead. Its large Vietnamese community, serious taquerias, and Korean and Indian restaurants make it worth eating your way through the suburban plazas, even if the best places are spread out and need a car. Japantown and the restaurants of Los Gatos and Saratoga add a slower, more polished side.

Big Bear Lake offers hearty resort food: diner breakfasts, burgers, barbecue and a brewpub pint, with the most choice in the Village. Many visitors cook in their cabins, and on winter weekends the queues are long.

San Jose's few sights are odd and well worth seeing, while Big Bear Lake has almost nothing to visit. On the mountain, the Discovery Center covers the forest and its wildlife, a small museum covers local history, and a dirt-road drive takes you past old cabins and mining remains from the 1860s gold rush in Holcomb Valley.

San Jose can fill a couple of days. The Winchester Mystery House has staircases that lead nowhere, the Rosicrucian museum has Egyptian antiquities, Mission Santa Clara tells of the Spanish colonial founding, and the Computer History Museum tells Silicon Valley's own story.

After dark, Big Bear Lake offers après-ski and an early night, and San Jose offers a modest weekend scene. On the mountain, a night out is a drink in the bars near the slopes in ski season or a brewpub or sports bar in the Village. There are no clubs, and nothing stays open late.

San Jose's evenings centre on a few downtown blocks. San Pedro Square has pubs, beer halls and a covered food market for before and after events at the arena. SoFA, along South First Street, has cocktail bars, dive bars and a few dance clubs, busy on Fridays and Saturdays and quiet the rest of the week.

Both are strong for the outdoors, but Big Bear Lake has the edge because you are already in the mountains. Two ski areas, a forested alpine lake for kayaking and sailing, the Pacific Crest Trail and the San Gorgonio Wilderness all start close to your door, and bald eagles winter around the shore.

San Jose's nature is wider in range but further away: redwood groves at Big Basin and Henry Cowell, foothill preserves, the Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton, and sea otters and whales in the Monterey Bay. Nearly all of it means a drive, and it has no snow.

This is where the two differ most. From San Jose, San Francisco is an easy day by Caltrain, and Monterey, Carmel, Santa Cruz's boardwalk, Stanford, Berkeley and the Santa Cruz Mountains wineries are all close enough for comfortable outings.

Big Bear Lake sits at the end of winding mountain roads. Lake Arrowhead, Oak Glen's orchards and Riverside's Mission Inn are possible, but anything further means a long and often slow day, so most people stay on the mountain.

San Jose has the wider range for children. Great America, Happy Hollow's gentle zoo, two hands-on museums downtown, and day trips to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and the Monterey Bay Aquarium will keep a family busy for a week, at the cost of many hours in the car.

Big Bear Lake is simpler, built around snow play, beginner ski lessons, the Alpine Zoo's rescued bears and bobcats, and in summer the alpine slide and pedal boats. For lowland children seeing snow for the first time, that can be enough on its own.

Both effectively need a car, but for different reasons. In Big Bear Lake, the steep mountain highways are the only way in and may require snow chains in winter. Once you are there, the Village is walkable and a local bus and seasonal trolley serve the ski areas, though the forest cabins mean driving for most errands.

San Jose has a compact, flat downtown, light rail and Caltrain up to San Francisco. Beyond those lines it is freeways, slow buses and rush-hour traffic.

San Jose is clearly the better place to shop. On the west side, a very large regional mall and its open-air boutique street cover most international and luxury brands, and Willow Glen, Los Gatos, Japantown and the Asian supermarkets give you more varied browsing.

Big Bear Lake's Village has gift shops, fudge, bear souvenirs and outdoor outfitters, which is enough for an hour's browse and not much more.

Big Bear Lake is the cheaper of the two, provided you choose your dates. A shared cabin midweek or in the shoulder seasons, with your own cooking, is reasonable, while winter weekends, school vacations, lift tickets and ski hire push the cost up quickly.

San Jose is expensive throughout, and the pattern runs the opposite way: business hotels are dearest midweek and cheaper at weekends. Car hire and parking add up, and the suburban Vietnamese and Mexican eateries and the free trails are the main ways to save.

San Jose has a real arts calendar, if a small one. Opera San José performs in the restored California Theatre, the symphony and touring Broadway shows play the Center for the Performing Arts, and the arena and the summer jazz festival bring big concerts.

Big Bear Lake has community theatre, free lakeside concerts in summer and the Oktoberfest bands in autumn. Otherwise it is a guitarist in a bar.

In Big Bear Lake you unwind in private and outdoors, and in San Jose you go to a bathhouse or spa. Many Big Bear cabins have their own hot tub on a deck among the pines, and on quiet midweek days the clear mountain air and slow pace are restful. Busy winter weekends spoil the calm.

San Jose has more you can book: Korean-style bathhouses with saunas and soaking pools in the valley towns, hotel spas, and day spas in the wealthier suburbs. The Japanese gardens at Hakone and Kelley Park are calm places for an hour, but around them is a busy city built around the working week.