Christchurch or Queenstown?

Christchurch has real sea beaches inside the city. New Brighton is a long grey strand with summer lifeguards, Sumner is a sheltered bay for families, and surfers head to Taylors Mistake. The water stays cool, so most visitors walk and paddle rather than swim.

Queenstown has no sea at all. Lake Wakatipu is fed by snowmelt, and a dip off the town jetty or the shingle beach on Queenstown Bay is a bracing plunge. Shallower lakes such as Lake Hayes warm up a little more in midsummer. Neither town suits a beach trip, but only Christchurch offers surf and sand.

The two are evenly matched, though the food differs in character. Christchurch eats from the Canterbury farmland around it, with lamb, Akaroa salmon, a covered market by the river, laneway dining and suburban farmers' markets, and the Waipara wineries are under an hour north.

Queenstown has more restaurants than a town its size would normally carry, from burger and pie counters to lodge-style dining with venison. Its best asset is the long lunch at a Gibbston Valley cellar door, a short drive away. Expect to queue and to pay more here.

Christchurch has far more to see. The surviving Gothic Revival buildings of the Arts Centre, the cardboard Transitional Cathedral, the earthquake museum and the glass-fronted art gallery together fill a solid two days, and the city's Antarctic links add another angle.

In Queenstown, the main historic sight is the 1912 steamship TSS Earnslaw, along with a few gold-rush stone buildings. The gold-rush story is told better in Arrowtown.

Queenstown has the livelier nights. Backpackers, seasonal workers and skiers pack the bars around Shotover, Camp and Searle streets, après-ski keeps winter evenings loud past midnight, and summer brings long light evenings on the lakefront terraces. It is still mostly drinking and DJ bars, and two nights cover it.

Christchurch is calmer. There are craft beer pubs and wine bars along Oxford Terrace and Victoria Street, which fill up at weekends, and the city goes quiet early during the week.

Both are excellent bases for the outdoors, but Queenstown puts you right in the middle of it. The Remarkables rise over the lake, Ben Lomond and Queenstown Hill can be walked from the streets, and the Routeburn, the Shotover jet boats and the Kawarau Bridge, where commercial bungy began, are all close by.

Christchurch has to reach out for its big landscapes. Closer in, the Port Hills crater rim and kayaking among Hector's dolphins on Banks Peninsula are fine outings. Arthur's Pass and Mt Hutt are about two hours away, though, while Queenstown's ski fields are a short drive.

The day trips are about even, but Queenstown's are closer to town. Arrowtown's miners' cottages and Chinese settlement are twenty minutes away, Wanaka is an hour over the Crown Range, and the Cromwell wine country and the goldfields towns of Clyde and Alexandra lie beyond.

Christchurch's best outing, the French-founded harbour village of Akaroa, takes about an hour and a half, as does Hanmer Springs. Nearer options are Lyttelton through the tunnel and the Waipara vineyards. From either base, longer trips are mostly about scenery, and Milford Sound is a very long day.

Christchurch is the easier choice with young children. It is flat and uncrowded, with a huge riverside playground, punting on the Avon and the heritage tram. Orana's open-range animals and the snowstorm room and penguins at the Antarctic Centre make strong half-day outings.

Queenstown's gondola, luge and lake steamer go down well, and its ski schools are good. But many of the thrills the town is known for come with age and weight limits, and the long drives to the bigger sights are hard on small children.

Both centres are easy to walk. Christchurch's is completely flat, and its separated cycleways and shared e-scooters let you range further than you would on foot. Queenstown's core is tiny, with the lakefront, gondola and gardens a few minutes apart, and its transport runs outward from there: buses to Frankton, the airport and Arrowtown, a water taxi across the lake and ski shuttles to the mountains.

Beyond the centres, both rely on a car. Christchurch's buses cover the beaches and the airport, but the wildlife parks and Banks Peninsula are awkward to reach without one. Queenstown's wineries, Glenorchy and the trailheads lie along winding roads, the single Frankton road backs up at busy times, and in winter the mountain roads can call for chains.

Neither is a shopping destination, and both sell the same merino, possum-wool knitwear and greenstone to take home. Christchurch adds Ballantynes, a department store trading since the 1850s, and a compact centre of chain stores. Queenstown's Mall is better for ski, bike and hiking gear and for galleries of local landscape painting.

Christchurch is clearly the cheaper stay. Its hotels and motels cost less than in the tourist hubs, and the gardens, gallery and beaches are free. Meals and car hire still follow New Zealand's high prices.

Queenstown charges resort rates for rooms, especially in the ski season, and the activities that bring people there, from jet boats to lift passes, add up quickly. Hostels, self-catering and the free trails help keep costs down.

Christchurch has a real programme. The symphony orchestra plays in the acoustically admired Town Hall, the Court Theatre stages professional drama, and the Edwardian Isaac Theatre Royal takes touring ballet and musicals.

In Queenstown, live entertainment mostly means a covers band in a pub. An events centre hosts the occasional touring act, and the winter festival puts on a few days of street performances.

Only Christchurch has hot water on its doorstep: saltwater pools facing the surf at New Brighton, with Hanmer Springs' forest mineral pools within a day's reach and an unhurried town pace to match.

Queenstown has no hot springs. Unwinding there means a private cedar tub above the Shotover River or a lodge spa, and its busy adventure centre pushes anyone seeking calm out to Arrowtown or Glenorchy.