Carmel-by-the-Sea or Mammoth Lakes?

Neither town is a swimming destination, but Carmel at least has a real beach. The curve of white sand at the foot of Ocean Avenue is good for sunset walks and for children to dig in, even though the Pacific stays cold and rough and Monastery Beach is for looking at only.

Mammoth Lakes has no sea at all. A dip in Horseshoe Lake or the slightly warmer Crowley Lake is possible in July and August, but the lakes are better for paddling and fishing, and bathing in Hot Creek is banned.

Carmel eats with more ambition. It has French and Italian dining rooms in cottages, Dungeness crab and sand dabs from Monterey Bay, and tasting rooms pouring local Pinot Noir. What it lacks is anything casual, cheap or late.

Mammoth Lakes is the opposite: hearty breakfasts, burgers, tacos, steakhouses and beer brewed in town. This is food to refuel you after a day on the slopes or the trails, not a reason to come.

Carmel has the more rewarding sights. The main one is the stone basilica and gardens of Mission San Carlos Borromeo, where Junípero Serra is buried. Add the storybook cottages and Robinson Jeffers' granite Tor House above the sea. A morning or two covers it all, but the village has a real sense of place.

Mammoth Lakes is a modern resort of lodges and condominiums with one small history museum in a log cabin. Its real heritage lies an hour or more away, at Bodie and Manzanar.

Neither town is for a big night out, but Mammoth Lakes has more going on. In the ski season the Village and the bars by the lifts fill up for après-ski, the brewery taprooms stay busy and long weekends can run late.

In Carmel an evening means a glass of wine in a tasting room, a long dinner and an early night, and the streets are quiet by ten. Even the fallback, Monterey's Alvarado Street, is modest.

Both are outstanding bases for the outdoors, and the difference is sea against mountain. Carmel's strength is the coast: Point Lobos with its otters and seals, whales passing in winter and spring, the bluffs of Big Sur and kayaking in Monterey Bay.

Mammoth Lakes offers even more range. It has one of North America's largest ski areas, a bike park, the Lakes Basin, and wilderness trails to Devils Postpile and Rainbow Falls. Mono Lake's tufa towers are nearby, and in summer the Yosemite high country opens over Tioga Pass. Bear in mind that the town sits at about 2,400m, so the air is thin.

Carmel has more within easy reach. There are Cannery Row and the adobes of old Monterey, Victorian Pacific Grove, the wine lanes of Carmel Valley and the Santa Cruz boardwalk about an hour north. San Francisco is possible as a long day.

From Mammoth Lakes the outings are fewer and further apart along the highway, but the best are memorable: the gold-rush ghost town of Bodie and the internment camp at Manzanar. The passes close in winter, so most excursions head into the mountains rather than to other towns.

Families with school-age children do well in both, and Mammoth Lakes is slightly better for active ones. It has a ski school, beginner slopes and a snow tubing hill, rowing boats and trout fishing in summer, and condominiums with kitchens. Its weak spot is a bad-weather day, with no museum or aquarium for children, and the altitude can tire them for the first day or two.

Carmel has exactly what Mammoth lacks: the Monterey Bay Aquarium fifteen minutes away, plus the tide pools at Point Lobos. But the village and its restaurants are made for quiet adults, and the sea is too cold for paddling.

Carmel's square-mile grid is pleasant on foot, though the residential lanes are dark and have no pavements after dusk. Almost everything beyond the village, from Point Lobos to the aquarium, needs a car.

Mammoth Lakes is more spread out but easier without a car. In winter there are free shuttles and a gondola from the Village to the slopes. In summer a trolley runs to the Lakes Basin and a shuttle goes into Reds Meadow. For the wider Eastern Sierra you still need a car, with snow chains in winter.

Carmel is the better place to browse. There are galleries of plein-air painting and photography, and courtyards of boutiques selling cashmere, jewellery and homeware. It is polished and pricey, and an afternoon covers it.

Shopping in Mammoth Lakes means gear: ski, climbing and fly-fishing shops, rental outlets and a few galleries of landscape photography. It is useful, but nobody goes there to shop for pleasure.

Both are costly, but Carmel is harder on the wallet. Its boutique inns are priced as luxury all year, dinners and wine tasting are expensive, and there is little cheap food. Staying in Monterey or Seaside is the usual way to save.

Mammoth Lakes is most expensive in the peak ski weeks, when lift tickets and lodging bite. Summer and the in-between seasons are easier: hiking and the lakes cost little, and a condominium kitchen cuts the cost of meals.

Carmel has the stronger summer programme. The Carmel Bach Festival has run since 1935, the Sunset Center hosts concerts, and the Forest Theater stages plays under the pines. The Monterey Jazz Festival is close by each September.

Mammoth Lakes offers a smaller, local version: a community theatre on the college campus, a summer jazz festival, chamber music, and concerts in a meadow with the mountains behind.

The two are equally restful in different ways. Carmel's calm is polished: spas at the lodges of Pebble Beach and Carmel Valley, treatments in your room at village inns, misty mornings and a fire in the evening. It suits a couple's slow weekend.

Mammoth Lakes has what Carmel lacks, natural hot springs, but they are simple pools out in the sagebrush, reached by dirt road. Add hotel hot tubs and massage for tired legs, and you get a rougher, more outdoor kind of rest.