Bryce Canyon or Redwood National Park?

Neither is a place for a beach vacation, but Redwood at least has a shoreline and somewhere to swim. Bryce is high desert, far from any sea, and Tropic Reservoir and Panguitch Lake are cold mountain water for fishing and paddling, so a motel pool is the realistic option.

Redwood's Gold Bluffs and Enderts beaches are wide and empty, good for driftwood and watching the surf, though the cold Pacific and sneaker waves keep people out of the water. In July and August, the clear pools of the Smith River near Jedediah Smith Redwoods make a proper swim after a hike.

Redwood eats better, though only once you head to its southern edge. Arcata and Eureka have Humboldt Bay oysters, Dungeness crab in season, farm produce, a Saturday market on the plaza and a solid craft-beer tradition, and Trinidad serves fresh fish beside its harbour.

Around Bryce, meals are fuel: ranch breakfasts, Navajo tacos, steaks and pie, with the 1920s lodge dining room offering setting more than cooking. The serious kitchens are a drive away in Escalante and Boulder, choice thins after dark, and Utah's alcohol rules make a drink with dinner harder to come by.

Bryce has the shorter list of the two. Its 1920s timber-and-stone lodge, the visitor centre's account of the geology and the Paiute stories of the hoodoos, the red-brick pioneer houses of Panguitch and the ancestral Puebloan village at Boulder's Anasazi State Park Museum fill an afternoon between them.

Redwood can fill a little more of your time. The rebuilt Yurok plank-house village at Sue-meg State Park points to thousands of years of life on this coast, Battery Point Lighthouse is a low-tide walk out from Crescent City, and Eureka adds its restored Victorian Old Town and the ornate Carson Mansion.

Bryce has no nightlife at all. Its small Mormon gateway towns have very few bars, and most visitors turn in early to be on the rim for sunrise. Redwood is quiet near the park too, but an hour's drive south brings you to brewpubs around Arcata's university plaza and to Eureka's Old Town, enough for a sociable drink if not a late night.

Both are among the great landscapes of the American West, and they could hardly be more different. At Bryce you stand high on the edge of a dry, open plateau and look down into bowls of orange and pink hoodoos, then walk in among them on the Navajo Loop or Queen's Garden. The slot canyons of Grand Staircase-Escalante, Zion a couple of hours away and snowshoeing on the rim in winter add to it.

At Redwood you look up. Trees over 100m tall rise through the fog in Stout Grove and Tall Trees Grove, and ferns hang down the walls of Fern Canyon. Here the coast is part of the trip: the Coastal Trail above sea stacks, Roosevelt elk on the meadows, passing grey whales, tide pools at Trinidad and kayaking on the Smith River.

Redwood has more towns to visit. Trinidad sits on its headland close to the southern end, Arcata and Eureka pair a university plaza with a waterfront Old Town, and Ferndale's painted Victorian storefronts across the Eel River valley make it the prettiest village on this coast. Northwards, the harbour towns of southern Oregon are a pleasant drive.

From Bryce, almost every outing leads to more scenery. Panguitch's pioneer main street, Kanab with its Hollywood Western past and the college town of Cedar City are each worth a stop, but none fills a day.

Redwood is kinder to younger children. The grove loops are flat, Fern Canyon means wading and climbing over logs, and elk are easy to spot. A roadside gondola near Klamath and the canopy walkway at Eureka's small zoo give a change from the trails, though the cold sea and sneaker waves mean children need watching on the beach, and there is little to do indoors when it rains.

Bryce enchants children too, with a Junior Ranger programme and the short paved stretch of the Rim Trail. Even so, the thin air, the steep climb back out of the canyon and the unfenced edges make it better suited to older children who enjoy a long walk.

Both need a car, and both have quiet, easy roads. Bryce is the more compact: its 30km scenic drive runs along a single plateau, a free summer shuttle links the busiest viewpoints, and the Rim Trail lets you walk between them. The catch is distance, as the nearest sizeable airports are hours away and snow can close the far end of the park road in winter.

Redwood stretches about 70km along the coast, so it is worth having a base at each end, in Crescent City and in Trinidad or Arcata. The Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway is a pleasure to drive, but Howland Hill Road is gravel and the road to Fern Canyon is unpaved, sometimes with shallow creeks to ford.

Shopping barely figures at Bryce: a large general store with Western wear and camping gear, the park shops for books and maps, and roadside rock shops selling geodes, fossils and polished stone. Redwood gives you a little more to browse, with redwood burl carvings and chainsaw sculptures along US-101, galleries, bookshops and antiques in Eureka's Old Town, and basketry and jewellery by Native artists in both Eureka and Arcata.

Redwood is the cheaper stay. There is no fee to enter the national park, state park campgrounds among the redwoods are inexpensive, and motels in Crescent City cost far less than those near the big-name parks. Eating out and a hire car still cost what they do anywhere in the United States.

At Bryce, a shortage of beds keeps rooms in Bryce Canyon City and Tropic expensive from late spring to early autumn, and entrance fees mount up over a multi-park road trip. Camping, the older motels in Panguitch, picnic lunches or a winter visit all bring the cost down.

The two are about level, but their offers differ in kind. Bryce has one occasion worth planning a trip around: the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City, about an hour and a half away, which runs a repertory season from early summer into autumn. Beyond that there is only a summer cowboy dinner show.

Redwood has nothing of that stature, but more happening on an ordinary evening. Arcata's university brings touring acts and student productions in term time, and Eureka has a small symphony, community theatre and a few small live-music venues.

Redwood is the more restful of the two. Hours on soft trails through hushed old-growth groves amount to forest bathing, and in Arcata you can rent a private hot tub or sauna by the hour, with massage at a few lodges.

Bryce offers quiet as well, in cool air, on empty roads and on lodge porches under dark skies. Its days, though, are spent climbing in and out of the canyon at altitude, and there is little pampering beyond the odd hotel hot tub.