Big Bear Lake or Santa Fe?

Neither is a beach destination, but Big Bear Lake at least has water on the doorstep. You can take a cool summer dip close to the shore, and the supervised swim beach at Meadow Park suits children. Kayaks and paddleboards fill the rest of the day.

Santa Fe is high desert with no lake in town. Swimming means a hotel pool, or a drive of about an hour to Abiquiu Lake or a float down the Rio Grande.

Santa Fe has a cuisine worth travelling for. Red and green chile, blue corn, posole and carne adovada are served in old adobe dining rooms, there is more fine dining than such a small city usually has, and the long-established farmers' market at the Railyard is worth a morning. Beyond the regional cooking, though, the choice is thin.

Big Bear Lake feeds hungry skiers and hikers with diner breakfasts, burgers, pizza and pints at a brewpub, and many visitors cook in their cabins. You eat to refuel there, not because the food is a reason to go.

This is the widest gap between the two. Santa Fe has four centuries of Spanish colonial history in its adobe Plaza, the Palace of the Governors and the San Miguel and Loretto chapels. Its museums, on Museum Hill and downtown, are better than its size would suggest, and the galleries of Canyon Road are close by.

Big Bear Lake offers a forest discovery centre, a small local museum and a dirt-road drive past gold-rush remains in Holcomb Valley. Its chalet-style Village is pleasant, but the buildings are modern.

Both towns go to bed early, but Santa Fe gives you more of an evening. There is a long dinner, then a margarita or mezcal on a rooftop as the sun sets over the Jemez Mountains, and there are a few breweries by the Railyard and livelier summer nights on the Plaza.

In Big Bear Lake the evening is a brewpub, some après-ski in season, then the hot tub. Neither town has clubs, but from Santa Fe, Albuquerque is an hour's drive away.

Both are genuine mountain bases, and the difference is in the landscape. Big Bear Lake is forest and water: pines around an alpine lake, two ski areas, mountain biking on the summer slopes, the Pacific Crest Trail and the San Gorgonio Wilderness close by, with bald eagles over the lake in winter.

Santa Fe mixes mountain and desert. Trails into the Sangre de Cristo foothills start at the edge of town, aspens turn gold above the ski area, and further out lie the Pecos Wilderness, Valles Caldera, rafting on the Rio Grande and the red cliffs of Abiquiu. It has no lake to paddle, but the scenery is far more varied.

Santa Fe is by far the better base for outings. The High Road to Taos through Chimayo and Truchas, Taos Pueblo, the cliff dwellings of Bandelier, Los Alamos, Pecos and the villages of the Turquoise Trail each make a full and rewarding day, mostly by car.

From Big Bear Lake the winding mountain roads slow everything down. Lake Arrowhead and the orchards of Oak Glen are within reach, and Riverside's Mission Inn is about an hour and a half away, but most visitors simply stay up the mountain.

Big Bear Lake is built for families, especially those from lowland cities where snow is a novelty. Winter brings sledding, snow play and beginner lessons, summer brings the alpine slide, go-karts and pedal boats, and the cabins have room to spread out.

Santa Fe is safe and calm, and the children's museum, the toys in the folk art collection and the ladders at Bandelier all help. Still, galleries and long dinners test young children's patience. Both towns sit at altitude, so small children may tire for the first day in either.

You will want a car in both, but Santa Fe's centre works better on foot. The Plaza, the cathedral, the museums, Canyon Road and the Railyard all lie within about twenty minutes' walk of each other, and the Rail Runner train runs to Albuquerque.

Big Bear Lake's Village is walkable too, and a bus and a seasonal trolley go to the ski areas. However, the cabins are scattered through hilly forest, and the steep roads up the mountain can need snow chains in winter.

Santa Fe is a serious place to buy art and craft. Native American artists sell silver and turquoise jewellery under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, galleries line Canyon Road, there are dealers in Pueblo pottery, rugs and Western boots, and the big summer markets draw collectors from far away. Big Bear Lake has a few blocks of gift shops, fudge and bear souvenirs, plus shops for gear hire, which is enough for an hour's browsing.

A shared cabin with its own kitchen, booked midweek or outside the winter and school vacation peaks, is what keeps Big Bear Lake affordable, so it works best for groups and families who cook for themselves. Ski weekends are another matter: cabin rates jump, and lift tickets and equipment hire add up quickly.

In Santa Fe the money goes on hotels and restaurants priced for well-off visitors around the Plaza, and rooms cost even more during the summer markets, the opera season and at Christmas. A room out along Cerrillos Road costs less, and hiking and gallery browsing are free. Still, the hire car most visitors need comes on top, and a couple travelling alone has no shared cabin to split the cost.

Santa Fe has a real summer season. The opera plays in an open-sided theatre on a hill as the sun goes down, there is a chamber music festival and a long flamenco tradition, and the historic Lensic theatre and concerts in the old churches carry on through the rest of the year. Big Bear Lake has community theatre, free concerts by the lake in summer and Bavarian bands at its autumn Oktoberfest, and little more.

Santa Fe makes relaxing an activity in its own right. It has Japanese-style soaking tubs in the foothills, the mineral springs at Ojo Caliente, used for bathing since the nineteenth century, and more spas, yoga studios and healers than its size would suggest. In Big Bear Lake, relaxing happens at the cabin: a private hot tub, a wood stove and a deck in the pines. That is peaceful midweek, but the town is crowded on winter weekends, and it has only a few day spas and no springs.