Branson or Winter Park, Colorado?

Neither town is near the sea, but only Branson has real summer swimming. Table Rock Lake warms up through the hot months and has public swim areas, often with sand brought in, plus quiet coves you can reach by rented pontoon. Around Winter Park, the water at Grand Lake and the Granby reservoirs comes from snowmelt and stays cold even in July, so people paddle on it rather than swim, or use a pool at the hot springs.

Neither town is worth travelling to for the food, and both serve hearty American plates in different styles. Branson does fried chicken, catfish and barbecue at buffets and dinner theatres, plus Ozark touches such as skillet cooking, fudge and trout. Winter Park serves ski-lodge food: burgers, green chile, breakfast burritos, craft beer, and steak or elk at a few better dinner rooms. The daily routine differs too. In Branson you eat early before a show, and in Winter Park you eat before the lifts open and after the last run.

Neither town is a heritage destination, but Branson gives you more to see. Its real heritage is Ozark folk culture. At the 1880s-themed park west of town, blacksmiths, glassblowers and woodworkers show how frontier crafts were done, and the Ralph Foster Museum at College of the Ozarks is an odd but absorbing collection. The wax museums and novelty galleries on the strip are slight, but they will fill a wet afternoon.

Winter Park has very little to visit. It is a town that grew up around its ski slopes, and what history it has lies in the railway story of the Moffat Tunnel and a small ranch museum in Fraser about the valley's homesteaders. For a proper museum day you have to drive to Denver.

Both towns go to bed early, but Winter Park has more of a night out. Après-ski fills the bars at the base village when the lifts close, and taprooms along the main road carry on into the evening, loud and cheerful on winter weekends. In Branson the show is the night out, and afterwards there are only a few brewpubs by the lakefront and some hotel lounges.

Branson's outdoors are gentle and green. You can boat and fish for bass on Table Rock Lake, catch trout on cold Lake Taneycomo, walk in Hercules Glades and tour show caves, and the bluffs of the Buffalo National River are two hours south. Dogwood blossom in spring and red hills in autumn are the best seasons, because the summer heat pushes walks into the early morning.

Winter Park works on an altogether bigger scale, with summits above 3,600m. In winter Mary Jane has steep bumps and tree runs, and there is backcountry terrain on Berthoud Pass. In summer you have high tundra, moose and elk in the Indian Peaks and on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park. There the weather to plan around is the afternoon thunderstorm.

From Branson the day trips go to small towns over easy country roads. The best is Eureka Springs, a Victorian spa town of stone buildings on steep streets. Crystal Bridges in Bentonville has serious American art in woodland, and the Civil War battlefield at Wilson's Creek is under an hour away.

Winter Park's outings mean driving over mountain passes. Georgetown and Idaho Springs have old mining-town main streets and a narrow-gauge railway, Grand Lake has its wooden boardwalk, and Denver's museums are about an hour and a half away. Winter storms on Berthoud Pass can close or slow the road, so these plans depend on the weather.

Branson is built for children in a way Winter Park is not. A theme park, water parks, an aquarium, a paddlewheel showboat, go-karts, caves and dinner shows with horses and stunts will fill a week without repeating anything. The downsides are the summer heat and constant driving.

Winter Park is very good for one kind of family vacation: learning to ski. It has a large children's ski school, and in the compact village everything is a short walk from the lifts, with tubing, skating and an alpine slide on top. The altitude can disturb sleep for the first nights, and on a bad-weather day there is little to do indoors.

Winter Park's free shuttle makes the difference. It runs between the ski base, the town and Fraser, so once you arrive you can get through a ski week without driving. You still need a car for trailheads and the national park, and the road in from Denver over Berthoud Pass needs winter tyres, or you can take a shuttle instead.

Branson gives you no such option. Its theatres and hotels are spread along Highway 76 and the bypass roads across several hilly kilometres, the pavements are patchy, and traffic on the strip crawls on show nights. Only Branson Landing and the small old downtown are walkable.

Branson has far more to shop for. There are outlet malls on the strip, mainstream stores at Branson Landing on the shore of Lake Taneycomo, and Ozark crafts such as hand-blown glass, quilts and ironwork, often made in front of you. Winter Park's shops are mostly for gear: ski tuning, bike shops, outdoor clothing and a few souvenirs. For anything more you have to go to Denver.

Branson is the cheaper of the two. Its many motels, condos and lake cabins are good value and buffets keep meals modest, so most of the cost goes on show tickets, park entry and a hire car.

Winter Park is expensive in ski season, when lift tickets, rentals, lessons and resort-priced meals add up quickly, though it is cheaper than Colorado's glamour resorts. A summer trip, with free trails and cheaper rooms in Fraser, closes much of the gap.

Live shows are the reason Branson exists, and Winter Park has almost none. Branson's dozens of theatres stage country, bluegrass, gospel, tribute acts, magic and large biblical productions from morning to evening, and the Christmas season is as busy as summer. There is no opera or serious drama, though.

Winter Park has free summer concerts in the town park with the mountains behind, and for the rest of the year a band in an après-ski bar. For a real performance you have to drive to Denver.

Winter Park is the more restful of the two, as long as you avoid the busy ski weeks. Clean mountain air, quiet forest and the hot tub that most condos have do most of the work. Hot Sulphur Springs, half an hour west, has mineral pools stepping down a hillside above the Colorado River.

Branson has no bathing tradition. For peace there you need to stay at a lodge resort with a spa or in a cabin on a quiet cove of Table Rock Lake, away from the neon and traffic of the strip.