Colorado Springs or Winter Park, Colorado?

Neither place has a beach, since both sit high in the Rockies. In Colorado Springs the hot summers make a public pool or a city lake tempting, and rafting on the Arkansas River is the main day out on the water. The lakes around Grand Lake and Granby near Winter Park stay cold with snowmelt and suit paddling more than swimming, so there warm water means a hot tub or the springs down the valley.

Colorado Springs has more choice. There is Southwestern cooking with green chile, Mexican and Asian places along the main roads, brewpubs with food trucks outside and formal dining at the Broadmoor. Tejon Street downtown, Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs are the nicest places to eat, and the local beer is the best of it.

Winter Park's food is ski-town fuel: breakfast burritos before the lifts open, burgers at the slopeside lodges and a few dinner rooms serving steak, elk and trout. It is fine after a day outside, but the choice is narrow and tables fill early on winter weekends.

Between a city and a ski town, the gap shows most clearly in culture. In Colorado Springs you can fill a day or two with sights: the aluminium spires of the Cadet Chapel at the Air Force Academy, the Olympic and Paralympic Museum, the Southwestern collection at the Fine Arts Center and the Gold Rush story told inside the old courthouse at the Pioneers Museum. The Victorian streets of Manitou Springs add some historic character.

Winter Park hardly competes. Its heritage is the railway story of the Moffat Tunnel and a small homesteading museum in Fraser, and a proper museum day means a drive to Denver.

Neither suits a late night, but Colorado Springs has more of an evening. The few blocks of Tejon Street downtown hold cocktail bars, sports bars, brewpubs and a handful of dance spots, and they fill at weekends with students and young soldiers.

Going out in Winter Park means après-ski. The base-village bars are packed when the lifts close, and after that people move to pubs and taprooms on the main road. Most of the crowd are families and early risers, so it is lively in the late afternoon and quiet by late evening, and quieter still in summer.

Both are excellent for the outdoors, and the difference lies in altitude and season. Colorado Springs sits at the foot of the mountains. It has the red sandstone fins of Garden of the Gods, climbing in Red Rock Canyon, the Manitou Incline, waterfalls in North Cheyenne Cañon and the summit of Pikes Peak, and the dry climate keeps the trails open for much of the year.

Winter Park is up in the high country itself. In winter there are two connected ski mountains, cross-country tracks in the valley and backcountry slopes on Berthoud Pass. In summer there is a lift-served bike park, singletrack through the forests around Fraser, and the moose and tundra on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park, about an hour away.

Colorado Springs has more within reach, and the roads are easier. Denver is a little over an hour north, the gold-mining towns of Cripple Creek and Victor and the Royal Gorge Bridge are each about an hour away, and Manitou Springs is next door.

From Winter Park there are fewer outings, and they depend more on the weather. You can go over Berthoud Pass to Georgetown and Idaho Springs, or visit the boardwalk at Grand Lake and Hot Sulphur Springs. Denver is about an hour and a half away when the pass is clear, but winter storms can close it.

The two suit different family trips. Colorado Springs is better for a week of varied short outings: hand-feeding giraffes at Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, the cog railway up Pikes Peak, the caves at Cave of the Winds, the Manitou Cliff Dwellings and a small Christmas-themed park in the hills, though nearly every one means a drive.

Winter Park is built around a ski week. Its large children's ski school and gentle base slopes make it a classic place to learn, and tubing, sleigh rides and an alpine slide are all close to a walkable village. There is little to do indoors on a wet day, and at that altitude headaches and poor sleep are common for the first night or two.

Winter Park is the easier of the two without a car, at least for a ski week. A free shuttle links the ski base, the town centre and Fraser, and the base village is walkable. Trailheads and the national park still need a car, though, and the way in from Denver crosses Berthoud Pass.

Colorado Springs barely works without a car. The sights are spread along the foothills and the buses are thin and infrequent. Only downtown, Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs are pleasant to explore on foot.

Neither is a shopping destination, but only in Colorado Springs is there much to browse. Galleries, Western wear, rock and gem shops and local crafts fill the old storefronts of Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs, and there are outlet stores on the north side of town.

In Winter Park the shops are for rentals, ski tuning, outdoor clothing and a few souvenirs. They are useful if you forgot your gloves, and not much more.

Colorado Springs is the cheaper stay. The chain hotels along the interstate are reasonably priced and the parks and trails are free, though tipping and car hire add to the bill.

In ski season, Winter Park comes with full resort costs, from lift tickets and lessons to slopeside lodging and restaurant meals. Condos with kitchens in Fraser bring the cost down, and summer is much easier on the budget, when lodging rates drop and the trails cost nothing.

Colorado Springs at least has a regular programme. The Philharmonic plays at the Pikes Peak Center, the Fine Arts Center's theatre company stages plays and musicals, and touring bands play the arena and the amphitheatre in summer. Winter Park has free summer concerts in the town park and bands in après-ski bars, but no theatre or concert hall, so for anything more you go to Denver.

Winter Park is slightly the more restful of the two. It has cold, clean mountain air, hot tubs at most condos and lodges, and the mineral pools of Hot Sulphur Springs stepping down a hillside about half an hour away. Late spring and autumn, after the ski crowds leave, are the calmest weeks.

Colorado Springs has its own spring tradition in Manitou Springs, with fountains of naturally fizzy water and a small outdoor soaking spa, and the Broadmoor has a full grand-hotel spa. The well-known Colorado hot-spring pools are more than two hours away, though.