Breckenridge or Las Vegas?

Neither is a place to swim outdoors in any serious way, and the difference is what you get instead. Breckenridge's water is cold: Lake Dillon is for sailing and paddling, the alpine lakes are snowmelt, and swimming means the recreation centre pools or a hot tub.

Las Vegas at least has warm water. The resort pools along the Strip have wave pools and lazy rivers for hot afternoons, and Lake Mead's gravel shore at Boulder Beach is warm enough to swim from in summer, though there is no shade.

Las Vegas offers much more to eat. The Strip resorts gather famous chefs, steakhouses, French dining rooms and tasting menus, and Spring Mountain Road adds kilometres of Sichuan, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese cooking that stays open late.

Breckenridge feeds you well after a day outdoors: steaks, wood-fired pizza, green chile breakfast burritos, and Colorado elk, trout and lamb at the more ambitious tables. Its own beer and whiskey are the local pride. But the choice is narrow, tables are hard to get in peak weeks, and the food is not a reason to come.

Neither town is a place to come for sightseeing, but what each offers is very different. Breckenridge has real history you can walk through: a large Victorian district of painted storefronts and miners' cabins from the 1859 gold rush, plus a gold-mine tour and the old river dredges.

Las Vegas has almost no old buildings, but it does have two strong museums downtown, the Neon Museum's yard of old casino signs and the Mob Museum in the former federal courthouse. The rest of its sightseeing is the Strip's fountains, replica skylines and light shows.

Here Las Vegas is in a different league. Big-name DJs play the resort clubs, pool parties start in the afternoon, and on weekends the Strip is as busy at 3am as in the evening. Downtown's Fremont Street and the arts district offer cheaper dive bars and cocktail lounges.

Breckenridge's nights start at après-ski in ski boots and continue in brewpubs and Victorian saloons, with a couple of dance bars on winter Saturdays. It is lively for a mountain town, but it is still small, and outside the ski season it goes quiet after dinner.

Breckenridge is surrounded by mountains. The Tenmile Range rises straight above town for skiing, and Keystone, Copper Mountain and Arapahoe Basin are close by. In summer, trails climb from the edge of town and a paved path runs to Lake Dillon. The only real drawback is the altitude of almost 3,000m.

The desert around Las Vegas is impressive in its own way, with Red Rock Canyon's sandstone cliffs and climbing, Valley of Fire's petroglyphs, and the cooler forests of Mount Charleston. But you need a car for all of it, and from June to September the heat leaves only the early mornings for hiking.

Breckenridge has more varied towns within a drive: silver-boom Leadville with its mining museum, the Georgetown narrow-gauge railway, hot springs at Idaho Springs, Vail's pedestrian village, and Denver about two hours away. Winter roads can make any of these drives much longer.

From Las Vegas, the classic outing is Hoover Dam with the workers' town of Boulder City. The Grand Canyon, Zion and Death Valley are famous, but they mean long drives to see landscapes rather than places to wander.

Breckenridge is much the easier place with children. Ski schools take children young, the gondola is free, and in summer the mountain has a coaster, climbing walls and mazes, with pools and an ice rink in town. Altitude sickness and handling winter gear with small children are the real downsides.

Las Vegas can fill a day or two with its indoor amusement park, shark aquarium and children's museum. But casino floors stand between almost every resort entrance and its attractions, and the adult side of the Strip is hard to avoid. Families tend to use the city as a stop on a road trip to the national parks.

Breckenridge is easy to get around. The historic centre is compact, a free gondola climbs to the slopes, and free buses link the town with Frisco, Keystone and Copper Mountain, so you can spend a week without driving. The hard part is getting there, two hours from Denver's airport on I-70.

The Strip is only about 6km long, but the resorts are so big and the footbridges so roundabout that walking takes far longer than it looks, especially in the heat. The monorail and buses help, but most visitors end up using taxis, and the desert sights need a hire car.

Las Vegas is a serious shopping destination. The big fashion and jewellery houses fill the Forum Shops at Caesars, the Venetian's canal-side arcade and the central luxury mall, and Fashion Show and two outlet centres add department stores and bargains, with late opening hours.

Breckenridge's Main Street is a place to browse ski gear, Western landscape galleries and sweet shops on a snowy evening. Anyone with a longer list drives to the Silverthorne outlets. Neither city has markets or much local craft.

In ski season, Breckenridge costs as much as any ski resort. Lift tickets, equipment hire and lessons come on top of the room, and the Christmas, New Year and spring-break weeks cost the most. Summer and the quiet seasons are much cheaper, and free trails, buses and the gondola keep everyday costs down.

Las Vegas is the cheaper of two expensive places, mainly because rooms on the Strip and downtown can be good value midweek. Weekend rates, resort fees, shows and cocktails soon cancel that out. Eating in Chinatown saves more than anything else.

Live entertainment is one of the main reasons people choose Las Vegas. Acrobatic water shows, magicians and comedians play every night in purpose-built theatres, pop and country stars hold long residencies, and the Smith Center brings touring Broadway shows, the Philharmonic and ballet.

Breckenridge's real strength is summer, when a festival orchestra and a national orchestra academy fill the open-sided Riverwalk Center by the Blue River with symphonic and chamber music. Otherwise there is a small theatre company and bands in the après bars.

Las Vegas has the bigger spas. The resort spas are huge, with thermal circuits, salt and ice rooms and day passes, and a weekday morning there can be genuinely calm, provided you can get past the noise of the casino floors.

Breckenridge's version is simpler: an outdoor hot tub in falling snow and a massage after skiing. Early starts and thin air leave many visitors more tired than rested. Calm summer evenings by the river do the most good, with natural hot springs at Idaho Springs about an hour away.