Boulder or Telluride?

Neither town is a place to swim, so the difference is how easy it is to get into the water. In Boulder the reservoir's small sandy swim area is on the edge of town and Boulder Creek runs right through it for tubing, so a hot afternoon in the water needs no planning. Telluride's nearest swimming spot, at the reservoir near Ridgway, is an hour's drive away and stays cool even in midsummer, so summer water time there usually means rafting, paddling or fishing instead.

Both towns eat well for their size, but in different styles. Boulder's food is health-minded and casual: vegetarian and vegan cooking, bakeries and coffee roasters, the Saturday farmers' market by the creek and taprooms across the east side, with the hand-carved Dushanbe Teahouse as its one-off.

Telluride's is resort cooking. A few serious kitchens on Colorado Avenue and in Mountain Village cook with lamb, elk and trout and have deep wine lists. Neither town has much range. Boulder can fall back on Denver, while a week in Telluride means going back to the same small circle of tables.

Boulder gives the curious visitor a little more to fill a day. It has the 1898 Chautauqua colony under the Flatirons, the sandstone and red-tile university campus, I.M. Pei's atmospheric research laboratory on the mesa and a handful of small museums.

In Telluride the sight is the town as a whole: an intact mining-boom grid of clapboard and brick. Add the historical museum in the old miners' hospital, the Sheridan Opera House and the mill ruins on the canyon walls. In both places an afternoon or a day is enough, and neither is worth planning a trip around for sightseeing.

Boulder has the fuller evenings. There are taprooms, cocktail bars and pubs around Pearl Street, the loud student bars of University Hill in term time, and Denver within reach for anything bigger. Even so, the town winds down early, because so many people head for the trails at dawn.

Telluride's nights mean après-ski and a few old saloons on Colorado Avenue. They are lively in peak ski weeks and on festival weekends and very quiet the rest of the time. With no clubs and no city nearby to escape to, a late night out is hard to find.

Both are outstanding mountain bases, so the choice is about which mountains you want. Boulder sits where the plains meet the Front Range. It has over 200km of open-space trails starting at Chautauqua, the great climbing walls of Eldorado Canyon and canyon roads that draw serious cyclists, and Rocky Mountain National Park is an hour away.

Telluride is deeper in and higher up, in a box canyon below peaks over 4,000m. Bridal Veil Falls, a via ferrata and jeep roads over old mining passes all start from the end of the main street. In winter it is a ski town with the slopes right above the houses, whereas Boulder's ski area lies up the canyon. Telluride's thinner air takes a day or two to get used to.

Boulder can reach much more in a day. Denver, with its art museum, state capitol and restored Union Station, is a bus ride away. With a car, Golden, Fort Collins, Estes Park and the silver towns of Georgetown and Idaho Springs fill further days.

From Telluride every outing is a mountain drive. Ridgway and Ouray are about an hour away, Silverton is over Red Mountain Pass, and the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, the one site of real weight, are at the very limit of a day trip. In winter the passes can slow or close these routes.

Boulder is the easier choice with children. Besides the creek path, the reservoir swim beach, tubing and gentle trails, it has the planetarium, the natural history museum and the atmospheric research exhibits for wet days, and Denver's zoo and aquarium are close.

Telluride works for families who come to ski or hike. The free gondola is a treat in itself, the ski school is well regarded and the waterfall walks are short. But wet days leave little to do indoors, costs are steep, and the higher altitude can disturb young children's sleep in the first nights.

Once you have arrived, Telluride is the simpler place to be without a car. You can cross the historic grid on foot in a quarter of an hour, and a free gondola and free buses link it to Mountain Village and the slopes. The catch is getting there: the local airport is often affected by weather and the larger ones are one to two hours away by road.

Boulder's centre is walkable too, and its off-street bike paths along the creek are excellent, with an express bus to Denver and its airport. But the trailheads outside town, Eldorado Canyon and the national park mostly need a car, so most outdoor visitors hire one.

Boulder has more to browse. The four brick-paved blocks of the Pearl Street Mall have independent bookshops, galleries and toy shops, there is a mall-style district at Twenty Ninth Street, and the outdoor gear shops are unusually good for a town its size. Telluride's few blocks of Colorado Avenue lean towards art galleries, Western clothing and jewellery at resort prices, plus ski shops. Neither is a place to come for shopping, but from Boulder you can easily go to Denver for anything it lacks.

Boulder is expensive, but Telluride costs a good deal more at every stage of a trip. In Boulder, rooms and restaurant meals are at affluent American prices. Even so, the open-space trails that bring most visitors are almost free, buses are reasonably priced, and staying in Denver and coming in is an easy way to save.

Telluride's few rooms and rental houses are priced for wealthy second-home owners, and Christmas and the festival weekends push them higher still. Lift tickets, guided trips and meals all sit at the top of the market. The free gondola and buses help a little, but the cheaper base is Ridgway, which means a mountain drive every day.

Boulder has live music most nights. Small and mid-sized rooms downtown and on the Hill book touring rock, bluegrass and roots acts. In summer the Colorado Music Festival plays in the 1898 Chautauqua Auditorium and Shakespeare is staged outdoors on campus, and Red Rocks Amphitheatre is within easy reach.

Telluride is a festival town. Its Bluegrass Festival in Town Park beneath the canyon walls is famous in the genre, and jazz, chamber music and the film festival fill the summer. Outside those weeks, though, the Sheridan Opera House offers only a few shows. Go to Telluride for a festival and to Boulder for music all through the year.

The two are about level here, but they help you unwind in different ways. In Boulder, calm is part of everyday life in town. You can join a yoga or meditation class almost anywhere, a university rooted in Buddhist teaching gives that quieter side real depth, and a massage or acupuncture session is never hard to find. What Boulder lacks is hot water: apart from the modest summer pool at Eldorado Springs, a proper soak means an hour's drive to Idaho Springs.

Telluride is the better choice if a long soak is what you are after. The resort spas in Mountain Village are built for tired legs after a day of skiing. An hour's drive takes you to the big public pool at Ouray or the springs outside Ridgway, where you sit in hot water with the San Juan peaks all around. The town itself offers quiet more than classes or treatments, and in spring and late autumn it is peaceful enough that rest comes easily.