Bryce Canyon or Sequoia?

Neither place is for swimming, but in Sequoia at least you can get into the water. In late summer the granite pools of the Kaweah near Three Rivers and the small sandy shore of Hume Lake make a good place to cool off after a hike, though the rivers are dangerous in spring.

Around Bryce, Tropic Reservoir and Panguitch Lake are cold and used for fishing and paddling, so a motel pool is the only real option.

Food is practical in both, and Sequoia does slightly better because of the farming valley below it. In summer, fruit stands sell stone fruit and citrus straight from the orchards, and Visalia and Fresno add taquerias, Mexican bakeries and Fresno's Armenian and Hmong cooking.

Around Bryce the meals are ranch breakfasts, steaks and Navajo tacos. The choice shrinks after dark, and Utah's rules limit alcohol. Its best dinners are out along Scenic Byway 12 in Escalante and Boulder, which are worth the drive.

Both are places for landscape rather than heritage, and in either an afternoon covers the sights. What differs is the story they tell. Bryce has national park architecture in its 1920s lodge, Mormon pioneer settlement in Panguitch and Tropic, and an ancestral Puebloan village at Boulder.

Sequoia's sights are about the trees and the people who lived among them, from the Giant Forest Museum to the Western Mono rock paintings at Hospital Rock. The ranger-led tours of Crystal Cave give it one classic sight underground.

There is no night out in either place. Bryce's Mormon gateway towns have hardly any bars and close early, while Three Rivers and downtown Visalia have a few places for a beer. In both, evenings are for ranger talks and very dark skies.

Both are among the great landscapes of the American West, but they differ in scale. Bryce is one concentrated spectacle: an amphitheatre of orange, pink and cream hoodoos that you walk along the rim or descend into among the spires. Horseback trails run down into the formations, ranger-led astronomy makes use of some of the darkest skies in the country, and in winter there is snowshoeing among frosted hoodoos. Red Canyon, Kodachrome Basin, Grand Staircase-Escalante and Zion are all within driving range.

Sequoia is a whole mountain range rather than a single scene, from groves of the largest trees on earth to the granite view from Moro Rock and the sheer walls of Kings Canyon at Cedar Grove. The walking runs from short grove loops to multi-day routes over high passes, including the long trails towards Mount Whitney, while the subalpine valley of Mineral King is the quietest base for serious hiking. Walkers who want variety and distance will find more here, along with black bears and spring wildflowers in the foothills.

Neither makes a good base for towns and history, and in both most outings lead to more landscape. From Bryce the trips have a Western flavour: Panguitch's pioneer main street, Kanab's past as a film setting and the college town of Cedar City.

Sequoia's outings are down in the flat San Joaquin Valley. Fresno's hand-dug Forestiere Underground Gardens are the most unusual sight, and Visalia's old downtown, Hanford's Chinese quarter and the historic town at Colonel Allensworth will interest the curious.

Both work for active families, both have Junior Ranger programmes, and neither has much made for children beyond nature. The difficulties at Bryce are the altitude, the steep switchbacks on the climb out and the unfenced drop-offs, so it suits older children who like walking.

Sequoia's trees impress children straight away, and the Tunnel Log and the paved Big Trees Trail are easy wins, with Hume Lake for a paddle in summer. The cost is long drives on hairpin roads and rivers that are dangerous in spring.

Both need a car, but Bryce is far simpler once you arrive. One scenic drive runs along the plateau with a pull-out at each viewpoint, the roads are quiet, and the summer shuttle and the Rim Trail link the busiest overlooks. The long drive there is the hard part.

In Sequoia, getting around inside the region is the hard part. The Generals Highway climbs through dozens of hairpins, Cedar Grove and Mineral King lie at the end of long roads that close in winter, and snow chains are often needed from late autumn. Staying near the groves saves hours each day.

Nobody comes to either place to shop, and the differences are small. Bryce's rock shops selling fossils and geodes, and its general store with Western wear, have a little more local character. Sequoia has lodge gift stores, a few galleries in Three Rivers and the fruit stands in the valley.

Both are expensive in summer, when rooms near the parks are scarce, but Sequoia offers more ways to save. Its campgrounds among the pines are some of the cheapest nights in California, and sleeping in Visalia cuts costs further, though it means long drives on mountain roads.

At Bryce, the lodges and motels in Bryce Canyon City and Tropic hold firm high-season rates, and meals are rarely cheap. The ways to save there are camping in the national forest, staying in the older motels of Panguitch or coming in winter.

Cedar City's long-established Utah Shakespeare Festival, about an hour and a half from Bryce, gives a theatre lover one evening worth planning a day around, with a repertory that runs from early summer into autumn. Nearer the park, summer brings a cowboy music show with dinner.

Sequoia's evenings belong to the rangers' campfire programmes, with talks and the odd song. Visalia's restored Fox Theatre and Fresno's orchestra do stage concerts, but the drive down from the trees after dark is long.

Bryce's calm comes mostly in the evenings, on a lodge porch in cool mountain air under one of the darkest skies in the country. The days start early on the rim and end with a climb back out of the canyon, and pampering goes no further than a hotel hot tub or massage room.

Sequoia gives you more rest across the whole day. Mornings in silent groves, creekside cabins in the foothills and nights without traffic make it easy to do very little, and late spring or September, when the forest is calmest, suits this best. A massage in Three Rivers is about the limit of treatments.