Carmel-by-the-Sea or Flagstaff?

Neither town is for a swimming vacation, but Carmel at least has a beach worth visiting. It is a long curve of white sand at the bottom of Ocean Avenue, good for sunset walks, dogs and children digging. The cold water and heavy surf leave the swimming to surfers in wetsuits.

Flagstaff is high on a plateau, far inland. The nearest place to get in the water is the creek pools of Oak Creek Canyon, such as Slide Rock. They are cold and slippery and get crowded on hot weekends, so for most visitors swimming means the motel pool.

Carmel is the place to plan meals around. Its cottage bistros and French and Italian dining rooms cook with what Monterey Bay produces, such as Dungeness crab, sand dabs and Castroville artichokes, and tasting rooms pour wine from the Santa Lucia Highlands. The downside is that dinner is refined, expensive and early.

Flagstaff eats casually: craft breweries with patios, diners, Mexican and New Mexican cooking, and the occasional Navajo taco. It will feed a hungry hiker well, but it has no fine dining and no strong food culture of its own.

Both have a short list of sights that you can see in a day or two, but the subjects are very different. In Carmel the history is Spanish and literary: the Mission San Carlos Borromeo, where Junípero Serra is buried, the storybook cottages and timber houses of the artists' colony, and Robinson Jeffers's granite Tor House.

Flagstaff's history is science and Native America. The Lowell Observatory is where Pluto was found, and the Museum of Northern Arizona holds Hopi, Navajo and Zuni art. The brick railroad downtown sits on old Route 66, and ancient pueblo ruins lie just outside town.

Flagstaff has much more going on after dark. Brewery taprooms, cocktail bars and old Route 66 saloons in the downtown and the Southside are a few minutes' walk apart, and university students liven up weekends in term time, although there are hardly any clubs.

In Carmel an evening out means a wine bar before it closes, a long dinner and perhaps a drink in a hotel lounge, and the streets are quiet by ten.

Both are outstanding bases for the outdoors, and the difference is ocean against mountain. From Carmel you get granite headlands and cypress at Point Lobos, with sea otters and seals in the coves, whales passing in winter and spring, and the cliffs and redwood canyons of Big Sur. Kayaking and kelp diving happen in the bay.

Flagstaff offers high country: alpine trails on the San Francisco Peaks, a huge ponderosa pine forest, the lava fields of Sunset Crater, and the Grand Canyon and Sedona's red rock within a drive. It also has winter snow and very dark night skies.

Both have plenty of day trips by car, but of different kinds. Around Carmel the outings are towns and wine: Cannery Row and the old adobes of Monterey, Victorian Pacific Grove, the tasting rooms of Carmel Valley, Steinbeck's Salinas and the boardwalk at Santa Cruz.

From Flagstaff the trips are into the past and the landscape: cliff dwellings at Montezuma Castle, Sinagua ruins at Walnut Canyon and Wupatki, the old mining town of Jerome, the railway from Williams to the Grand Canyon and the Hopi mesas. The drives are longer.

Flagstaff is the more relaxed choice with children. Telescope evenings at Lowell, the dinosaurs at the Museum of Northern Arizona, rope courses in summer and sledding in winter all suit curious kids, and the steam-era train to the Grand Canyon is an easy highlight. Plan for the altitude, which tires small children for a day or two.

Carmel has one big asset, the Monterey Bay Aquarium, along with the tide pools at Point Lobos. Otherwise it is a grown-up town where the water is too rough for small children to paddle.

You will want a car in both. Carmel's square-mile grid is easy to walk apart from the steep hill down to the beach, but the lanes are unlit and buses are infrequent. Point Lobos, Big Sur and the aquarium all mean driving and finding scarce parking.

Flagstaff's downtown is compact and its paved urban trails make cycling practical, and long-distance trains stop at the historic station. The motels are spread along Route 66, though, and there is no useful public transport to the canyon. Snow can make the mountain roads difficult in winter.

Carmel is better for browsing. It has a surprising number of galleries for its size, selling coastal painting, photography and sculpture, and small courtyards with cashmere, jewellery and homeware shops. It is polished and expensive, and you can cover it in an afternoon.

Flagstaff has fewer shops, but it has the more distinctive thing to take home: Navajo rugs, Hopi kachina carvings and turquoise silver jewellery, sold by established dealers and trading posts. Beyond those, there are outdoor gear shops and a regional mall.

Flagstaff is much cheaper. Chain motels on Route 66 and casual brewery meals keep the daily costs moderate. The extras add up, though: a hire car, fuel, park entry fees, and higher room rates on summer weekends when visitors to the Grand Canyon fill the town.

Carmel is a luxury village where boutique inns, dinner and wine tasting are all expensive all year. The beach, the streets and the coastal walks are free, and many visitors cut costs by staying in Monterey or Seaside.

The two are similar in scale but run on different schedules. Carmel's performances are concentrated in summer. The Bach Festival has played Baroque music there since 1935, the Forest Theater puts on plays outdoors among the pines, and the Monterey Jazz Festival comes each September.

Flagstaff has a modest programme all year: the Flagstaff Symphony and the university music school, touring folk and indie acts at the restored Orpheum Theater, and local bands in the breweries at weekends.

Carmel is the better choice for unwinding. It has well-regarded spas at the lodges of Pebble Beach and Carmel Valley, treatments in your room at village inns, and quiet, misty mornings. It is ideal for a slow weekend for two, although there are no hot springs.

Flagstaff's calm comes from pine air and starry nights rather than treatments. With only a few day spas in town, anyone wanting a proper spa day drives an hour to Sedona, and the altitude can disturb sleep for the first night or two.