Bryce Canyon or Yellowstone?

Neither is a place to swim. Bryce's only water is cold mountain reservoirs such as Tropic Reservoir and Panguitch Lake, which are used for fishing and paddling. Yellowstone at least offers a quick summer plunge in the Firehole River near Madison and commercial hot-spring pools outside the park, though Yellowstone Lake stays icy all year and the thermal pools are forbidden.

At both, food is fuel between outings, and picnic lunches on the trail do most of the work. Yellowstone has a little more regional character, with bison burgers, elk sausage, trout, huckleberry pie and a few brewpubs in the gateway towns. For serious cooking you drive to Jackson or Bozeman.

Around Bryce it is ranch breakfasts, Navajo tacos and steaks. The more ambitious kitchens are out along Scenic Byway 12 in Escalante and Boulder, and Utah's alcohol rules and early closing make evenings short.

Yellowstone has much richer heritage, because it was the world's first national park. The Old Faithful Inn, the Lake Hotel, the Roosevelt Arch and the old army post of Fort Yellowstone at Mammoth all tell the story of its early decades. The Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody is a real museum of Plains Indian cultures and Western art.

Bryce's list is shorter: its timber-and-stone lodge, the visitor centre's Paiute stories of the hoodoos, Panguitch's red-brick pioneer houses and the ancestral Puebloan village at the Anasazi State Park Museum in Boulder.

Both go quiet soon after dark, because the best hours are at dawn. Yellowstone offers a drink in a lodge lounge or one of a few saloons in the gateway towns. Bryce's largely Mormon towns have even fewer bars, but its exceptionally dark sky turns ranger-led astronomy evenings into the real night out.

These are two of the great landscapes of the American West, and they differ in kind. Bryce is one concentrated spectacle: thousands of hoodoos in bowls cut into a high plateau. You walk down among them on the Navajo Loop, Queen's Garden or Fairyland trails, and Red Canyon, Kodachrome Basin and the slot canyons of Grand Staircase-Escalante are close by.

Yellowstone has more range: geyser basins, Grand Prismatic Spring, the yellow canyon at Lower Falls, a huge mountain lake and the wildlife of Hayden and Lamar Valleys, where wolves and grizzlies are watched at dawn. That variety, and the large animals Bryce does not have, give it the edge on a longer stay.

Outings beyond either park mean long drives, but Yellowstone's lead to better places. These include Jackson's town square and the National Museum of Wildlife Art, Buffalo Bill's Cody, the gold-rush settlements of Virginia City and Nevada City, and Red Lodge at the end of the Beartooth Highway.

From Bryce the options are Panguitch's pioneer main street, Kanab with its Western film past and the college town of Cedar City. They are pleasant, but none fills a day, and the best outings there are simply more landscape.

Yellowstone works for a wider range of ages. A geyser that keeps to a timetable and animals by the roadside hold the attention of even small children, and the wildlife centre in West Yellowstone shows bears and wolves up close. The catch is hours in the car and constant watchfulness on the boardwalks and near bison.

Bryce rewards walking families: the Queen's Garden descent, horse rides into the formations and stargazing evenings are memorable. Beyond the park, though, there is nothing made for children, and the climb back to the rim is hard going for little legs.

Bryce is far simpler once you arrive. The scenic drive runs about 30km along the plateau, a free summer shuttle links the gateway town to the busiest overlooks, and the Rim Trail lets you walk between viewpoints.

Yellowstone's Grand Loop runs about 230km at low speeds, with bison holding up traffic and full car parks at Old Faithful. Most of its roads close to cars from early November to late April. Its one advantage is that the airports are closer, an hour or two from the entrances against several hours' drive to Bryce.

Neither is somewhere to shop. Bryce has its large general store and roadside rock shops selling fossils and geodes. Yellowstone's gateway towns lean towards fly-fishing and outdoor gear, and Cody and Jackson add cowboy boots, hats and galleries of wildlife art.

Neither is cheap in summer, but Bryce costs a bit less. A shortage of beds pushes up its high-season rates, yet the older motels in Panguitch, camping in the park and the free shuttle help keep spending down.

Yellowstone adds an unavoidable hire car and fuel for long distances, meals priced for a captive market and, to the south, Jackson, one of the costliest small towns in the country. At both, campgrounds and packed lunches make the biggest savings, and both are cheaper outside summer.

Live performance is thin at both, and each has one serious summer draw a drive away. From Bryce it is the Utah Shakespeare Festival in Cedar City. Near Yellowstone it is the classical season of the Grand Teton Music Festival at Teton Village. Closer at hand, Bryce has a cowboy dinner show, while Cody's nightly summer rodeo is the more authentic Western spectacle.

Yellowstone is better for unwinding because of the developed hot-spring pools near Gardiner and in Paradise Valley. These open-air soaks with mountain views suit a slow evening after a day's driving, even though the park's own springs are off limits. Bryce has no bathing culture, so its calm is quieter: empty roads, cool air and a lodge porch under a very dark sky.