Deer Valley or Huntington Beach?

This is the starkest contrast between the two. Huntington Beach is built along a long, wide strip of sand with volleyball nets, fire rings for evening bonfires and surf from dawn. The Pacific stays cool for much of the year, rip currents are common and you swim near the lifeguard towers.

Deer Valley has no coast at all. On hot July and August afternoons, the sandy shoreline of a state park at Jordanelle Reservoir is the most you will get. For most summer guests, swimming means the hotel pool.

Huntington Beach has the more interesting food. In town it is casual: fish tacos by the pier and brewpubs along the coast highway. The real reason to eat here is a short drive inland, in Little Saigon's pho houses and banh mi bakeries, with good Mexican cooking across the county.

Deer Valley offers polished resort dining on the mountain, plus Park City's surprisingly long list of steakhouses, sushi and bistros. But it is almost all at the top end, with no street food or markets and nothing you would call a local cuisine.

Neither is a sightseeing destination, and both can be covered in an afternoon. The heritage is quite different, though. Near Deer Valley, Park City's restored silver-mining Main Street and the old mine headframes tell a nineteenth-century boom story, and the Olympic Park recalls the 2002 Winter Games. Huntington Beach's history is surf history: the pier, the International Surfing Museum and handprints in the pavement, set among postwar suburbs.

Huntington Beach gives you a livelier night out. Main Street fills on Friday and Saturday with a young local crowd in sports bars, rooftop beach bars and a few dance spots, and in summer it can get loud. Even so, it is one strip, and weeknights are quiet.

Evenings near Deer Valley are an après-ski affair. People have drinks in Park City's saloons and cocktail bars after skiing, there are hardly any clubs, Utah's liquor rules apply and most people go to bed early to be on the first lift.

Deer Valley is the far stronger choice for time outdoors. Its immaculately groomed runs sit beside Park City Mountain, and Alta, Snowbird and the other Cottonwood Canyons resorts are an hour away. In summer the same slopes turn into a network of biking and hiking trails through aspen and fir, with the Uinta lakes beyond. The altitude takes a day to get used to.

At Huntington Beach the outdoors means the ocean: surfing, paddling in the harbour channels and cycling the beachfront path. Bolsa Chica's wetland birdlife is excellent, but you have to drive half an hour to reach hills at Crystal Cove.

Huntington Beach has a whole region within driving distance. Los Angeles is about an hour away and Laguna's arts town and coastline half an hour. Then there is Mission San Juan Capistrano, the ferry to Catalina, and San Diego or the Temecula wine country for a longer day.

Deer Valley's best outing is Salt Lake City, with Temple Square and the Capitol. Closer by are Midway, the Heber Valley steam railway and the small arts village at Sundance. They are pleasant, but small.

Huntington Beach is the easier family base. Disneyland, California Adventure and Knott's Berry Farm are all within half an hour, and there are sandy beaches, park lakes and tide pools close by. You do need the car for every outing, and the waves are too strong for toddlers.

Deer Valley is excellent for families who ski. It has good ski schools, wide beginner runs with no snowboarders, and tubing and coasters at the Olympic Park. Away from the snow there is little for children, and lessons and lift access make a family stay very costly.

Deer Valley is easier without a car than you might expect. Park City's free buses connect the resort bases with Main Street and Kimball Junction, and with ski-in lodging the car can stay parked for days. You will still drive to Salt Lake City or the canyons, and snow tyres matter.

In Huntington Beach, only the walk around the pier and Main Street, and bike rides along the flat beach path, work without a car. Theme parks, Little Saigon and Los Angeles all mean driving on busy freeways, because local buses are slow and infrequent.

Huntington Beach has more to buy, and the things are more characteristic. Its surf shops and board makers sell local surfboards and surf-brand clothing, and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, one of the country's largest luxury malls, is about twenty minutes away. Park City's Main Street is good for galleries, western boots and mountain gear, with an outlet centre at Kimball Junction, but broader shopping means going to Salt Lake City.

Neither is cheap, but Deer Valley is in a class of its own. It is one of the world's most expensive ski destinations, where luxury slopeside lodging, top-tier lift access, ski school and dining all add up. Summer and staying down in the Heber Valley soften the cost a little.

Huntington Beach is expensive in its beachfront hotels and you need a hire car. But the beach is free, there are motels on the inland boulevards, and Vietnamese and Mexican meals around the county keep daily costs reasonable.

Stage life is modest in both places, and the real difference is where the better shows happen. At Deer Valley they come to the resort itself. In summer the Utah Symphony plays outdoor festival concerts at Snow Park while people picnic on the grass, and all year the 1920s Egyptian Theatre on Main Street puts on plays and small concerts.

Huntington Beach has little in town beyond bar bands and summer concerts in the park, so you have to drive a short way to Costa Mesa. There the Segerstrom Center stages the Pacific Symphony, ballet, opera and touring Broadway, and South Coast Repertory runs a respected theatre season.

Deer Valley is the place to slow down in comfort. It has quiet lodges, terrace hot tubs in the snow, some of the mountain West's best hotel spas and the warm spring inside Midway's Homestead Crater.

Huntington Beach relaxes you in a looser way: yoga on the sand, sunset on the pier and an evening at a beach fire. Its spas are mostly resort hotels on the coast highway and day spas in shopping centres.