Dallas or Taos?

Neither city is a beach destination, and both are far from the sea. The difference is the water nearby. Dallas has warm reservoirs such as Lewisville and Grapevine lakes, with plain sandy park beaches, and the water parks in Arlington. In Taos the Rio Grande is for rafting, the mountain lakes stay cold, and a soak in a hot spring is the closest thing to a swim.

Dallas gives someone who travels to eat far more choice. Smoked brisket, steakhouses, Tex-Mex and Oak Cliff tacos cover the Texan side. The suburbs add real depth, from the Vietnamese and Chinese strips of Richardson to Carrollton's Koreatown and Irving's South Asian cooking, although you need a car for nearly all of it.

Taos offers much less, but its cooking is distinctive. The kitchen is northern New Mexican: posole, carne adovada and red or green chile, served with conviction in old family-run places, plus bread from the Pueblo's ovens. A week covers most of it, and there is little beyond the regional cooking.

The two are close here, but they offer very different things. Dallas has big-city museums a short walk apart in the Arts District, among them the Dallas Museum of Art and the Nasher. It also has the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, where the Kennedy assassination becomes painfully concrete, and the Art Deco halls of Fair Park.

Taos is smaller but more rooted in its setting. Taos Pueblo is a UNESCO site still lived in by its Tiwa-speaking community, and Dallas has nothing like it. The buttressed church at Ranchos de Taos and the small museums of the old art colony make up the rest. Both cities take two or three days to see, but Dallas is a matter of driving between glass towers and freeways, while Taos is slow walking among adobe.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Dallas has several districts with different crowds: scruffy dive bars and late nights in Deep Ellum, patio bars and cocktail lounges in Uptown, and rooftop patios on Lower Greenville. You take a ride-hail between them, and bars stop serving at 2am.

Most nights in Taos end soon after dinner. The choice runs to a margarita in an old adobe hotel bar, a brewery taproom or a band in a saloon, plus the après-ski crowd at the ski valley in winter. There are no clubs.

Taos is far ahead here. It sits where the Sangre de Cristo mountains meet the sagebrush plateau, with Wheeler Peak at 4,013m, alpine lakes and rafting and rim walks along the Rio Grande gorge. There is mountain biking on the West Rim and steep skiing half an hour up the canyon. Allow a day or two to get used to the altitude.

Dallas has pleasant green spaces rather than real scenery: the White Rock Lake loop, the Katy Trail, the Great Trinity Forest and limestone trails at Cedar Ridge Preserve. In summer the heat pushes most of this into the early morning.

Taos has the better day trips. The High Road to Santa Fe passes through Truchas, the eighteenth-century church at Las Trampas and the sanctuary at Chimayó. Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch lead into O'Keeffe country, and Bandelier's cliff dwellings make a longer day out.

Dallas has one excellent day out in Fort Worth, with the longhorn drive at the Stockyards and the Kimbell Art Museum, and you can reach it by commuter train as well as by car. After that come pleasant courthouse squares and the wine-tasting rooms of Grapevine, a thinner list than the New Mexico drives.

Dallas is far easier with children. Between Six Flags Over Texas and its water park, the Dallas and Fort Worth zoos, the Perot Museum, the Dallas World Aquarium and the State Fair in autumn, there is plenty to fill a stay. The heat from June to September limits outdoor days.

Taos works for families who already love the outdoors. It has a well-regarded ski school, gentle float trips and horse riding, but no zoo, aquarium or theme park, and the altitude can wear younger children out at first.

You need a car in both, but Dallas gives you more alternatives. DART light rail links both airports with downtown, Deep Ellum and Fair Park, and the TRE train goes to Fort Worth. The free M-Line streetcar joins downtown to Uptown, although pavements elsewhere are patchy.

Taos has only a basic bus and a small walkable centre around the plaza. You need a car for the Pueblo, the gorge, the ski valley and every village, and getting there usually means a drive of about two and a half hours from Albuquerque.

Dallas is the better shopping trip for most people. Neiman Marcus began here, and luxury and big labels fill NorthPark Center, the open-air Highland Park Village with its European fashion houses, and the Galleria. Western boots and hats are sold everywhere from ordinary shops to custom makers.

Taos is for a particular kind of shopper. It has galleries around the plaza, turquoise and silver jewellery, micaceous pottery, Rio Grande weaving and carved santos, best bought straight from the makers at the Pueblo. Craft collectors will spend days here, while everyone else is done in an afternoon.

Costs come out broadly similar, but for different reasons. Hotels in Dallas are cheaper than in the coastal cities, especially near the freeways, and barbecue, tacos and the many free museums keep spending down. The car or ride-hails cost money, as do the steakhouses and cocktail bars of Uptown.

In Taos simple motels and diners are fairly priced, but historic inns and ski-valley lodging charge resort rates in ski season and summer, and you will almost certainly need a hire car. Spring and late autumn are the cheapest times to go.

Dallas has a full performing arts calendar. The Arts District has the Meyerson, designed by I. M. Pei, for the symphony, the Winspear for opera and touring Broadway shows, and the Wyly for theatre. In Deep Ellum, a blues and jazz district since the 1920s, the clubs have bands most nights.

On an ordinary night in Taos there is little to see. What it has is rarer: traditional dances at the Pueblo on feast days such as San Gerónimo in late September, which visitors may watch under strict rules, plus a summer chamber music festival.

Taos is much the better place to unwind. Ojo Caliente, about fifty minutes away, has outdoor pools fed by several mineral waters beneath the cliffs. There are simple hot springs beside the Rio Grande at the bottom of the gorge, and yoga studios and retreat centres in town. The silence of the plateau does the rest.

In Dallas, relaxing mostly means hotel spas, day-spa chains or a hotel pool. The one place built for a whole day of rest is a large Korean-style bathhouse in the north of the city.