Carmel-by-the-Sea or San Francisco?

Neither place is for swimming. Both face a cold Pacific with strong surf, and the beaches are for walking. What differs is the setting. Carmel has one beach of fine white sand at the foot of the village, framed by cypress trees and looking across to Pebble Beach. Its wilder neighbours, Monastery Beach and Carmel River, are dangerous to enter.

San Francisco's shore is longer and more urban. Ocean Beach runs for miles and draws people to bonfires, and Baker Beach looks straight at the Golden Gate Bridge. Aquatic Park, inside the bay, is the one spot where hardy locals in wetsuits actually swim.

Carmel eats well for a village. It has intimate French and Italian rooms, local sand dabs and Dungeness crab, and tasting rooms pouring Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir. But dinner is refined, early and expensive, with little that is casual or from beyond Europe and California.

San Francisco is in another league for range. Mission burritos, Cantonese and dim sum in Chinatown and the Richmond, Italian bakeries in North Beach, and the Ferry Building's farmers' market sit alongside one of the country's strongest fine-dining scenes. You can eat very differently every day of the trip.

Carmel's culture is small and atmospheric. There is the 1771 mission where Junípero Serra is buried, the storybook cottages of the 1920s, Robinson Jeffers's hand-built Tor House, and a walk past the galleries. It fills a morning or two.

San Francisco offers much more. Its landmarks are known worldwide: the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the cable cars and the painted Victorians of Alamo Square. Behind them sit SFMOMA, the de Young, the Legion of Honor and the Asian Art Museum, along with the Mission's murals and the Castro's history. Together they make three or four full days.

In Carmel, a night out is a tasting room before it closes, dinner and perhaps a hotel nightcap. The streets are quiet by ten, and there are no clubs at all.

San Francisco has proper evenings. There are dive and mezcal bars in the Mission, old saloons in North Beach, the Castro's packed gay bars and warehouse clubs in SoMa. Bars close at 2am and the scene is spread across districts, but it is a world away from Carmel's early nights.

Both sit in superb coastal scenery, and Carmel has the slight edge because the wildest of it is on its doorstep. Point Lobos, with its sea otters, seals and wind-shaped cypress, is five minutes away. Bixby Bridge and the Big Sur redwoods are within an hour, and sunny Carmel Valley offers a drier, oak-covered contrast.

San Francisco's strength is how much lies inside the city or just beyond it. You can walk the Lands End cliffs and Golden Gate Park without a car, cycle across the bridge to the Marin Headlands, and see the redwoods at Muir Woods. Point Reyes, with its elk and elephant seals, makes a full day.

Carmel's outings are short and local. Monterey is so close it hardly counts as a day out: Cannery Row, Fisherman's Wharf and the adobes of the old Spanish and Mexican capital are a short drive away, with Pacific Grove's Victorian houses and lighthouse beside them. Further out are the tasting rooms of Carmel Valley Village, Steinbeck country around Salinas, the mission and historic plaza at San Juan Bautista, and the Santa Cruz boardwalk about an hour north.

San Francisco, about two and a half hours away, makes the whole outing a long day rather than an easy one.\n\nSan Francisco has more choice, and the bigger names. Napa and Sonoma are about an hour north, with hundreds of wineries and towns such as Healdsburg and St Helena. Sausalito and Tiburon are a ferry ride across the bay, and Berkeley and Oakland are a short train trip, so several outings need no car at all. The Bay Area itself is thin on old towns and heritage sites, and for those the classic trip runs south to Carmel's own mission, a drive of two hours or more.

Carmel works for families with school-age children who like wildlife. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is fifteen minutes away, and the tide pools at Point Lobos are close. But the village restaurants suit quiet adults, and nearly everything needs the car.

San Francisco gives children more to do in one place. The Exploratorium and the California Academy of Sciences can each fill a day, and there are also the zoo, the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf, the cable cars and the paddle boats in Golden Gate Park. The steep hills are hard work with a pushchair, and some downtown streets are less pleasant on foot.

Carmel's square-mile grid is easy to walk, though the hill down to the beach is steep and the residential lanes are unlit at night. Beyond the village, thin bus services mean you need a car for Point Lobos, Big Sur, the wineries and the aquarium.

In San Francisco a car is more burden than help. Muni, BART, the streetcars, the cable cars and the bay ferries all run on one Clipper card, and BART reaches the airport. The hills are the main effort, and you only need a hire car for wine country or the coast.

Carmel is a place to browse. There are galleries of plein-air painting and sculpture, and small courtyards selling cashmere, jewellery and wine. It is polished and pricey, and an afternoon covers it.

San Francisco has both scale and character. Union Square has the department stores and flagship brands, while the neighbourhoods offer design boutiques in Hayes Valley, bookshops and independent labels on Valencia Street, and vintage on Haight-Ashbury. Grant Avenue in Chinatown sells tea and ceramics.

Both are expensive, and neither is kind to a tight budget. The difference is in how you can save. In Carmel, the boutique inns are priced as luxury all year and there is almost no cheap food, so the usual answer is to sleep in Monterey or Seaside and drive in.

San Francisco's hotels are just as steep, and they climb further during big conferences. But you can stay in the city and still eat cheaply at Mission taquerias and dim sum places in the Richmond, get around on affordable public transport and use the free museum days.

Most of what Carmel offers on stage happens in summer. The Bach Festival has filled the season with Baroque concerts since 1935, many of them at the Sunset Center, and the Forest Theater puts on plays and musicals outdoors among the pines. The Monterey Jazz Festival arrives nearby each September. Outside those seasons, there are occasional concerts and community theatre.

San Francisco keeps a full programme all year. The War Memorial Opera House is home to the opera and the country's oldest professional ballet company, the symphony plays at Davies Symphony Hall, and the American Conservatory Theater stages serious drama. SFJAZZ in Hayes Valley, the Fillmore's rock shows and the free summer concerts in Stern Grove give an evening out plenty of choice.

Neither place has a bathing culture, and Carmel is the more restful of the two. Its quiet days, still evenings, fireside inns and resort spas in Pebble Beach and Carmel Valley make an easy slow weekend.

San Francisco has more facilities, including a long-established Japanese bathhouse in Japantown and plenty of day spas and yoga studios, with Calistoga's mud baths two hours away. But the city runs at a working pace, and finding calm means seeking out the Japanese Tea Garden or the quiet outer neighbourhoods.