Boulder or Snowbird?

Neither place is for a beach trip, so pack a swimsuit only for pools and cold water. Boulder offers a little more in summer. The sandy swim area at the reservoir is on the edge of town, and floating Boulder Creek on an inner tube is a real local pastime.

Snowbird's swimming is mostly the resort's heated pools. The nearest beaches are small ones on the Heber Valley reservoirs about an hour away, and the Great Salt Lake is somewhere you go to look at rather than to swim.

Boulder is a much better place to eat. It has a health-conscious, farm-to-table style built on Front Range produce, strong vegetarian cooking, good bakeries, a deep craft beer scene and the hand-carved Dushanbe Teahouse. The range of cuisines is narrow, but you can eat well for a week without repeating yourself.

At Snowbird, every meal is a resort meal: lodge restaurants, slopeside cafeterias, pizza and burgers at après-ski, and the views from the tram-top dining room. None of it is distinctively local, so most guests drive down to Salt Lake City once or twice a week for variety.

Boulder has a modest but genuine half-day or full day of sights. There is the 1898 Chautauqua colony under the Flatirons, the sandstone and red-tile university campus, I.M. Pei's laboratory on the mesa with its free weather exhibits, and a few small museums.

Snowbird has essentially nothing. It is a 1971 resort of concrete lodges, and the canyon's mining past has left almost no trace, so any history or art means a trip down to Salt Lake City.

Boulder offers a real if early-ending night out. There are taprooms and cocktail bars around Pearl Street, rowdier student bars on University Hill during term, and Denver about 40 minutes away for clubs.

Snowbird's nightlife is the après-ski hour on a sunny deck and in a couple of lodge bars, and then the canyon goes quiet. A late night means driving a mountain road to Salt Lake City or Park City.

Both places offer outstanding outdoors, but of different kinds. Boulder is a foothills town with its trail network starting at the edge of the streets. You can climb the Flatirons and Bear Peak, rock-climb at Eldorado Canyon, ride the canyon roads, and reach Rocky Mountain National Park in about an hour, all from a base with cafés and hotels.

Snowbird is true high country. The tram climbs to about 3,350m, the snow is famously deep and dry, and the steep terrain continues through Mineral Basin to Alta. In summer the same slopes lead into the Lone Peak and Twin Peaks wilderness and the meadows of Albion Basin. For skiing it has no rival here, while for hiking, climbing and cycling all year round Boulder is the more practical base.

The day trips are similar in shape: one large city nearby and a few pleasant smaller outings. From Boulder, Denver is an easy bus ride with a big art museum and Union Station, and with a car you can reach Golden, Fort Collins and the silver towns of Georgetown and Idaho Springs.

From Snowbird, Salt Lake City offers Temple Square and the Capitol, while Park City's Victorian Main Street is the most attractive smaller town. Beyond those there are Midway, Sundance and Ogden, and almost every trip starts with the drive down the canyon road.

Boulder suits a wider range of children. Toddlers and walkers are happy with the gentle trails, creek tubing, the reservoir beach and the Pearl Street performers, and the university museums cover a wet day, with Denver's zoo and aquarium close by.

Snowbird works best for teenagers and confident young skiers, because the mountain leans heavily towards expert terrain. Summer activities such as the alpine slide, mountain coaster and ropes course help, and the car-free base is easy to manage. However, the thin air tires small children, and every zoo or museum is down in the valley.

Boulder is much easier to get around. Downtown, the campus and Chautauqua are within walking or cycling distance, the off-street creek bike paths are excellent, and an express bus runs to Denver, although trailheads further out still need a car.

At Snowbird, getting around inside the resort is simple, because lodges and lifts are a short walk apart. Everything else depends on one winding canyon road that jams on powder mornings and is sometimes closed for avalanche control, so a car or shuttle is part of almost every plan.

Boulder has the Pearl Street Mall's brick blocks of independent bookshops, galleries and boutiques, and its climbing, running and cycling shops are excellent for a town of its size. Snowbird offers a few base-area stores for rentals, goggles and branded fleeces, so browsing means going to Park City's main street or the malls of Salt Lake City.

Neither is cheap, but Boulder is easier on the budget. Rooms and meals are expensive, yet the main attraction, the open-space trails, costs almost nothing, and the buses are reasonably priced.

At Snowbird, lift tickets, slopeside rooms, rentals and captive-audience meals all add up, especially in peak winter. The usual savings are a multi-resort pass, a hotel in Salt Lake City with a daily drive up, or a summer visit instead.

Boulder has a real music life for its size. Touring rock and bluegrass acts play small rooms most nights, the Colorado Music Festival fills the wooden Chautauqua Auditorium in summer, Shakespeare is staged outdoors on campus, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre is about 45 minutes away.

At Snowbird, live performance means summer concerts on the plaza, Oktoberfest oompah bands and the occasional après-ski band. Anything more serious means an evening in Salt Lake City.

Boulder offers more for a restorative stay. Yoga and meditation studios are everywhere, it has a contemplative Buddhist-inspired university, there is plenty of massage and acupuncture, and the slow morning pace suits unwinding, although real hot springs are an hour away at Idaho Springs.

Snowbird's relaxation is concentrated in one place, the rooftop spa with its pool and hot tubs looking onto the canyon walls, which is very good after a ski day. Outside that, there are the quiet dark nights and the warm crater at Homestead about an hour away.