Carmel-by-the-Sea or Park City?

Carmel at least has a real beach. The white sand at the bottom of Ocean Avenue, with cypress trees behind it and Pebble Beach across the bay, is good for sunset walks and for children to dig, although the cold surf rules out a proper swim. Monastery Beach and the river beach to the south are even more beautiful, but their steep shelves make them dangerous for swimming.

Park City has no coast at all. In its short summer, the cool water and sandy swimming areas of Jordanelle Reservoir are the nearest thing to a beach. In both places, most visitors who want a swim end up in the hotel pool.

The two eat about equally well, but the food is very different. Carmel serves Dungeness crab, sand dabs and Castroville artichokes in candlelit French and Italian rooms, with tasting rooms pouring Santa Lucia Highlands wine. Park City cooks for hungry skiers, with elk, bison, trout and steaks on Main Street and whiskey and craft beer on the slopeside decks after the lifts close.

Neither has much range or much street food. For variety, you drive from Carmel to Monterey or Seaside, and from Park City down the canyon to Salt Lake City. Park City's chains at Kimball Junction at least give you cheap casual meals, which Carmel hardly has.

Carmel has more history to see. Mission San Carlos Borromeo, where Junípero Serra is buried, is one of the finest in the California chain. The village adds the timber houses of the old artists' colony, the 1920s fairy-tale cottages and the granite tower Robinson Jeffers built by hand.

Park City's heritage is its silver-mining past. You see it in the restored Main Street storefronts, the headframes on the slopes and the city hall museum with its basement jail cells, plus the Olympic Park's ski museums. That fills an afternoon, while Carmel can fill a morning or two.

Park City has more going on after dark, at least in ski season. Après-ski on the decks leads on to a short strip of saloons, cocktail bars and the occasional band or DJ on Main Street, which can get noisy on winter weekends, though it is all over well before the small hours.

Carmel offers a glass in a wine bar, a long dinner and perhaps a hotel nightcap, and its streets are silent by ten.

Both are superb places for the outdoors, but they offer very different landscapes. Carmel's are coastal: the granite headlands and seal coves of Point Lobos, the bluffs and redwood canyons of Big Sur, kayaking among otters, kelp-forest diving and grey whales offshore in winter and spring.

Park City comes out slightly ahead because so much starts at the door. In winter there is skiing on two large mountains with more over the ridge, and in summer hundreds of kilometres of singletrack leave from the streets, with lifts carrying bikes uphill and fly fishing on the Provo and Weber rivers.

Carmel has the better range of outings close by. Monterey's Cannery Row and Spanish-era adobes, the Victorian houses of Pacific Grove and the tasting rooms of Carmel Valley are all near. Salinas, with its Steinbeck centre, Santa Cruz's boardwalk and the mission plaza at San Juan Bautista make fuller days out.

From Park City, the main trip is Salt Lake City, with Temple Square and the Capitol. The Heber Valley steam railway, Swiss-style Midway and Ogden's railroad-era street come next, and after that most of what is within reach is scenery rather than towns.

Park City is the easier place with children. Ski schools and gentle learning slopes, the Olympic Park's coaster, ziplines and splash-pool freestyle shows, and alpine slides in summer give them plenty to do, and the free buses save a lot of effort. Altitude can tire young children for the first day or so.

Carmel's best asset for children is the Monterey Bay Aquarium, along with the tide pools at Point Lobos. Beyond those it is a grown-up village of galleries and quiet dining rooms, with water too rough for paddling.

In Park City you can manage without a car. Free buses link Old Town, both ski bases, the lodging areas and Kimball Junction, and many hotels run shuttles. Carmel's square-mile grid is pleasant to walk, but its buses are infrequent, and Point Lobos, Big Sur, the wineries and the aquarium all need a car.

Both are awkward to reach. Carmel is served by Monterey's small regional airport, and Park City's nearest airport is about 40 minutes away by shuttle, on a canyon road that slows in snowstorms.

Carmel's shopping is coastal and refined. An unusual number of galleries show plein-air landscapes, photography and sculpture, and the courtyards and passageways off Ocean Avenue and Dolores Street hide small shops selling cashmere, jewellery and homeware. Park City's Main Street leans Western instead, with cowboy boots, outdoor gear and upscale ski fashion between its galleries.

Neither has a market or much local craft, and a keen shopper gets through either in an afternoon. The difference is out of town. Park City's outlet centre at Kimball Junction is on the free bus routes, while from Carmel the outlets and malls mean a drive into Monterey.

Both are among the costliest places to stay in the American West. Carmel's boutique inns cost a lot all year. Park City is cheaper in summer and autumn but very expensive at Christmas, when lift tickets and ski school add to the bill. In both, the usual way to save is to stay somewhere cheaper and drive in: Monterey or Seaside for Carmel, and Salt Lake City or the Heber Valley for Park City.

Both towns' arts calendars centre on summer. Carmel has a slightly deeper tradition. The Bach Festival has run since 1935, the Forest Theater stages plays among the pines, and the Monterey Jazz Festival takes place nearby in September.

Park City's strength is the Egyptian Theatre, a 1920s playhouse with comedy and cabaret all year, along with Utah Symphony concerts on the Deer Valley lawns in summer. For opera or ballet, you have to go to Salt Lake City.

The two are about equal for relaxing, with polished resort spas in both and no public bathing culture in either. Carmel is restful because of its pace: misty mornings, a fire in your room and quiet coastal walks. Park City has outdoor hot tubs in the snow, and in Midway the Homestead Crater, a warm spring inside a limestone dome where you can swim or snorkel. Carmel has nothing like it.