Big Sky or Salt Lake City?

Neither place is for swimming, but Salt Lake City has a little more to offer. You can float without effort in the Great Salt Lake once for the novelty, and on hot days locals drive to Wasatch reservoirs such as Jordanelle and Pineview, which have paddleboards and patches of sand.

In Big Sky the Gallatin River stays cold and rocky even in July, so summer water time comes down to a hotel pool or a picnic on the riverbank.

Salt Lake City has a wider range of food. Its best meals come from the Mexican, Pacific Islander, Peruvian and Vietnamese kitchens along State Street, and it has its own quirks too: fry sauce, pastrami burgers and drive-through soda shops. Downtown and Sugar House add breweries and a few ambitious modern restaurants.

Big Sky offers hearty resort cooking: bison, elk, trout and big breakfasts before a day on the slopes, with a handful of more refined lodge kitchens. The choice is narrow, some places cut their hours between seasons, and for real variety you drive an hour to Bozeman.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Salt Lake City has a real historic core built around its pioneer faith. Temple Square holds the granite temple and the domed Tabernacle, and the Beehive House, the hilltop Capitol and the painted Cathedral of the Madeleine are close by. Two full days of sightseeing is a fair estimate.

Big Sky was built from scratch as a ski resort and has almost nothing of the past apart from the log cabins of the Crail Ranch homestead. Nobody goes there for sightseeing.

Neither is a place for late nights, but Salt Lake City has more choice after dark. There are bars, breweries and a few dance clubs around Main Street and the Granary District, as well as a long-established gay bar scene and pubs in Sugar House, although Utah's liquor laws keep things restrained.

In Big Sky, going out means après-ski in boots on the decks of Mountain Village and perhaps a game of pool in an old canyon saloon. Most people are in bed early for the first lift, and outside the ski and summer seasons the resort is almost silent at night.

Both are first-rate mountain bases, and the difference is in how you reach the mountains. In Big Sky you are already up there: Lone Peak rises above one of the largest ski areas in North America, the Lee Metcalf Wilderness starts close by, the Gallatin is known for fly fishing and rafting, and Yellowstone's wildlife is an hour away.

Salt Lake City sits at the foot of the Wasatch, where Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude share famously dry powder less than an hour up the Cottonwood canyons. It also has a contrast Big Sky cannot match: bison on Antelope Island and the white Bonneville Salt Flats to the west.

Neither has many day trips, and what is on offer is quite different. From Salt Lake City the outings are short: Park City's Victorian main street is about forty minutes away, Midway and Ogden's 25th Street are close, and the Golden Spike site is there for railway history. Utah's famous national parks are too far for a day.

From Big Sky the drives are longer and lead into ranch country. Bozeman and its dinosaur fossils are an hour away, and the 1860s gold-rush boardwalks of Virginia City and Nevada City are about two hours.

Salt Lake City is better set up for children. Hogle Zoo, the aquarium, the Discovery Gateway children's museum and the planetarium cover rainy days, Lagoon's roller coasters are twenty minutes north, and restaurants expect families. The catch is that these places are spread across the valley.

Big Sky suits outdoor families well, with an easy ski school, a summer adventure park with zip lines, and bison in Yellowstone. However, the altitude of around 2,300m tires small children at first, and there is nothing indoors to fall back on.

Salt Lake City is easier without a car. TRAX light rail runs from the airport to downtown and the University, FrontRunner trains go north to Ogden and south to Provo, and the numbered grid is simple to follow, even if the long blocks make walking feel slow. For the canyons you still need a car or the winter ski buses.

Big Sky is strung out along about 15km of road. A free bus links its villages, and the slopeside lodges let you ski to the lifts, but the airport is an hour away and Yellowstone needs a car and careful winter driving.

Salt Lake City has the department stores and familiar brands in an open-air downtown mall, shops in the old streetcar barns of Trolley Square, and independent and vintage shops around 9th and 9th and Sugar House. Its locally run outdoor shops are excellent.

Big Sky has gear shops, a few Western-style boutiques and galleries of wildlife art. It is fine for replacing a pair of gloves, but for anything more people drive to Bozeman.

Big Sky asks for a far bigger budget. Winter prices follow the slopeside lodges and luxury resorts, and lift passes, ski school, guided fishing and even an ordinary dinner all add up quickly. Summer and the quieter months between seasons cost less, and you can sleep more cheaply down the canyon or in Bozeman, but then you pay in driving time.

In Salt Lake City you can choose how much the mountains cost you. Lift tickets and lodging in the canyons or Park City are expensive here too, but you can stay in a reasonably priced hotel in town, eat casually for a fair amount and drive up for the day. A summer hiking trip costs far less than a winter ski week, though you will still need a hire car.

Salt Lake City has a proper arts life. The Tabernacle Choir and the daily organ recitals on Temple Square are open to the public, and the Utah Symphony, Utah Opera, Ballet West and touring Broadway shows fill the rest of the year.

Big Sky does well for its size, with a small arts centre in Meadow Village, free summer concerts on the lawn and a short classical festival. Between the seasons there is very little on.

The two are about even for relaxation, and in both it comes second to the mountains. In Big Sky it is right outside the door: a hot tub on the deck under starry skies, and lodge spas that specialise in tired ski legs. The nearest natural hot springs, though, are an hour away towards Bozeman.

Salt Lake City has the more unusual soak, in warm mineral water inside the beehive-shaped Homestead Crater in Midway, about an hour's drive away. There are smaller hot springs north of the city, and the resort spas in Park City are about forty minutes over the ridge.