Deer Valley or Los Angeles?

Deer Valley has no coast at all. Summer swimming means a hotel pool or the sandy shore of Jordanelle Reservoir on a hot afternoon. Los Angeles has more than 100km of Pacific shoreline, from the coves of Malibu to the volleyball beaches of the South Bay and the Venice boardwalk.

Even so, the Pacific here is cool, and most people wade or surf in a wetsuit. The difference is really about beach life rather than warm-water swimming. For sand, surf and people-watching, only Los Angeles will do.

Deer Valley eats well at the top end. It has polished lodge food on the mountain and a cluster of steakhouses, sushi and bistros along Park City's Main Street, but there is little below that level and no local cooking to seek out.

Los Angeles is in another league. Its strength is its immigrant neighbourhoods, from the taco trucks of the Eastside to Koreatown's charcoal grills and the regional Chinese kitchens of the San Gabriel Valley, with Grand Central Market for grazing. You will drive to reach the best of it, though, while in Park City dinner is a short walk or a free bus ride away.

Sightseeing around Deer Valley takes about an afternoon: Park City's restored silver-mining Main Street, its museum in the old city hall and the Olympic park built for the 2002 Games. Los Angeles has a proper art circuit in the Getty, LACMA and the Broad, along with the Huntington's library and gardens, Griffith Observatory and the whole Hollywood story.

Neither has an old city to wander. Still, Los Angeles fills several days where Deer Valley fills one, as long as you accept long drives between the sights.

Evenings at Deer Valley mean fireside drinks in the lodges. Park City's saloons and après-ski bars are a few minutes away and busiest on ski-season weekends. It is sociable but small and early, and most guests have one eye on first chair.

Los Angeles offers whole districts with different moods: velvet-rope clubs in Hollywood, the gay strip in West Hollywood, rooftop cocktails downtown and dive bars in Silver Lake. Bars close at 2am and a night usually stays in one neighbourhood, but there is far more choice.

Both are strong, but Deer Valley is the purer mountain base. It has its own immaculately groomed runs, Park City Mountain next door and the powder of Alta and Snowbird about an hour away. Summer brings lift-served biking, fly-fishing on the Provo and the lakes of the Uintas.

Los Angeles has remarkable wild country for a city, from Griffith Park and the Santa Monica Mountains to the San Gabriels, plus surfing and winter whale watching. You can be outdoors in any month, but traffic and summer heat get in the way. At Deer Valley the trails start at the door, and the main thing to adjust to is the altitude.

From Deer Valley the main outing is Salt Lake City, with Temple Square and its museums, plus smaller stops at Midway, the Heber Valley steam railway and Sundance. Los Angeles has the better list: Spanish Colonial Santa Barbara and its vineyards, the ferry to Catalina, the galleries of Laguna Beach and the orange groves around Ojai.

Neither offers much deep history, and traffic out of Los Angeles can stretch any drive. Still, the California coast gives you more varied days than the Utah valleys.

Deer Valley suits families who ski. It has very good children's ski schools, gentle groomed runs with no snowboarders, and tubing and an alpine coaster at the Olympic park. Beyond that, the zoo and the children's museums are back in Salt Lake City.

Los Angeles has far more for children: Disneyland, Universal Studios, the space shuttle at the California Science Center, the La Brea Tar Pits and the Long Beach aquarium, with beaches in between. The cost is time in the car, so it's best to pick one area a day.

Day to day, Deer Valley is the easier place to manage. Fare-free buses link the base areas with Main Street and Park City Mountain, and much of the lodging sits on the slopes. Trips to the Cottonwood Canyons or Salt Lake City still mean driving.

Los Angeles is spread across dozens of separate cities joined by jammed freeways. Metro lines help between downtown, Hollywood, Pasadena and Santa Monica, but most visitors still hire a car or use ride-hailing and plan each day around one area.

Park City's Main Street has galleries, western boots, outdoor shops and a few boutiques, with outlets at Kimball Junction, and mountain gear is its one real speciality. Los Angeles covers everything, from the luxury houses of Rodeo Drive to Melrose streetwear, the independent shops on Abbot Kinney and the vintage stalls of the Rose Bowl flea market.

For a real shopping trip, Los Angeles wins clearly, as long as you allow a car and a day for each district.

Neither is cheap, but Deer Valley is harder on the wallet. Slopeside lodging is almost all luxury, lift access is priced at the top of the market and ski school adds more. Coming in summer, or staying in the Heber Valley, softens the cost.

Los Angeles has expensive hotels and a hire car and parking to pay for. Unlike Deer Valley, though, it has real ways to save: taco trucks and Koreatown meals that cost little, plus free beaches, Griffith Observatory and the Getty.

Deer Valley's season is summer, when the Utah Symphony plays outdoors at the Snow Park amphitheatre. The 1920s Egyptian Theatre on Main Street is the year-round stage. Los Angeles has the Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl, LA Opera, Broadway tours at the Pantages and bands every night on the Sunset Strip and in Echo Park.

Both have the summer picnic concert, but only Los Angeles is worth planning a trip around for music, theatre or comedy.

The two offer different kinds of rest. At Deer Valley it comes from the setting: quiet lodges, hot tubs on snowy terraces, polished hotel spas and the warm crater pool at Midway, though there is no bathing tradition to speak of.

Los Angeles has more on offer: Koreatown's late-opening bathhouses, yoga studios everywhere and the spas of Beverly Hills, with Ojai and Palm Springs within reach for retreats. The city itself is tiring, but for treatments and communal bathing it has the edge.