Breckenridge or Palm Springs?

Neither town has a beach, and in both swimming happens in a pool. In Breckenridge the outdoor water is snowmelt cold, so Lake Dillon is for sailing and paddling, and you swim in the recreation centre's indoor pools or soak in a hot tub.

Palm Springs makes the pool the centre of the stay. Almost every hotel, motel and rental house has one, and the long hot season makes lying beside it much of the point. The ocean is about two hours west over the mountains.

Breckenridge serves hearty resort food: Colorado lamb, elk and bison, green chile at breakfast, and beer and whiskey made in town. It is cooked for hungry skiers rather than curious eaters.

Palm Springs comes out a little ahead, mostly because of what the wider valley adds. There are date shakes from the groves around Indio and Thermal, honest taquerias and panaderias in the eastern towns, and long brunches on shaded patios. Neither has a local cuisine, and both see kitchens cut back in their quiet seasons.

Breckenridge's gold-rush district of painted Victorian storefronts and miners' cabins, along with a mine tour where you can pan for gold, makes a pleasant afternoon's walk but not much more.

Palm Springs gives a curious visitor considerably more. It has a dense spread of mid-century modern buildings, from Albert Frey's houses and Richard Neutra's Kaufmann House to the folded roofs of the Alexander homes in Twin Palms and Vista Las Palmas. The Palm Springs Art Museum and the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum, which tells the story of the Cahuilla people, round out a full day.

Breckenridge's evenings are après-ski: brewpubs and old saloons filled with people still in ski boots, and a couple of dance bars that run late on winter Saturdays. Most people are in bed early, though, and in spring and autumn the town goes quiet.

Palm Springs has a little more character after dark. The long-established LGBTQ bars along Arenas Road have patios and drag nights, the hotels hold pool parties on spring weekends, and Palm Canyon Drive has retro cocktail lounges. Neither town has real clubs.

Breckenridge has the stronger outdoors, and it lasts all year. In winter you can ski five peaks of the Tenmile Range plus Keystone, Copper Mountain and Arapahoe Basin nearby. In summer, trails climb from the edge of town and Quandary Peak is a short drive south.

Palm Springs has striking scenery of its own. The tramway climbs to pine forest on Mount San Jacinto, the Indian Canyons hide palm oases, and Joshua Tree is about an hour away. But from June to September the heat limits hiking to just after dawn or the upper mountain.

Breckenridge has slightly more substantial outings. There is Leadville's silver-boom centre and mining museum, the narrow-gauge railway at Georgetown, the hot springs at Idaho Springs and Vail Village. Denver's museums are about two hours away when I-70 allows.

Palm Springs offers quirkier trips rather than grander ones: the pine village of Idyllwild, the old Western film set at Pioneertown, and the abandoned shore towns and Salvation Mountain by the Salton Sea. Both need a car, and both put their nearest big city just beyond a comfortable day.

Breckenridge is the easier choice with children, at least for a ski trip. Ski schools take children from a young age, the beginner slopes are wide and gentle, and summer turns the mountain into an activity park with an alpine coaster and climbing walls. The main worry is altitude sickness in the first days.

Palm Springs has good outings in the Living Desert zoo, the tramway and the Air Museum. But many boutique hotels are adults-only, social life centres on cocktails, and from late spring the middle of the day is too hot to be outside.

Once you arrive, Breckenridge is far easier without a car. The centre is walkable, the gondola to the slopes is free, and free town and county buses reach Frisco, Keystone and Copper Mountain. Getting there is the hard part: about two hours by road from Denver's airport, and snow can make it longer.

Palm Springs is the opposite. The airport is on the edge of town, but beyond the flat downtown strip almost everything, from the canyons to Joshua Tree, needs a car, and the valley buses are slow.

Breckenridge's Main Street is good for ski gear, technical clothing and Western landscape art, but has little else, and serious shoppers drive to the Silverthorne outlets.

Palm Springs has a real speciality. The Uptown Design District is full of consignment shops selling mid-century furniture, lighting and vintage clothing, Village Fest adds weekly stalls downtown, and El Paseo and the Cabazon outlets are close by.

Both are pricey, but Breckenridge is the harder one on the wallet. Slopeside condos, lift access, equipment hire and lessons add up fast, especially over the Christmas, New Year and spring-break weeks. Summer is much kinder, and the free buses and gondola help.

Palm Springs costs resort money from winter into spring, and a hire car adds to the bill. In the hottest months, though, rooms drop sharply, and simple motels keep costs down at any time of year.

Breckenridge's best music is classical and comes in summer. A festival orchestra and a national academy of young professionals play the open-sided Riverwalk Center by the river in July and August. In winter there is little beyond bar bands.

Palm Springs has a wider spread. Coachella and Stagecoach fill the Indio polo grounds each April, the McCallum Theatre takes touring shows, and casinos book well-known acts. In town, drag cabaret and piano bars are the local character, though the programme mostly stops in summer.

In Breckenridge, wellness means a hot tub in the snow or a massage after skiing, and the thin air and early starts leave many visitors tired. The nearest natural springs are about an hour away.

Palm Springs was built on a hot spring and is a far better place to switch off. You can soak at the Agua Caliente bathhouse downtown, or in the spa motels of Desert Hot Springs, which fill their pools from the mineral aquifer. Days there move slowly around the pool, with dry winter sun overhead.