Deer Valley or Newport Beach?

There is no real contest here. In Deer Valley, swimming means a sandy strip at Jordanelle Reservoir on a hot July or August afternoon, and most guests settle for the hotel pool.

Newport Beach is built around its shoreline. It has surf by the piers, the notoriously dangerous waves of the Wedge, the calmer coves of Corona del Mar and sheltered harbour sand for small children. The Pacific stays cool, so this is a beach for surfing, volleyball and long days on the sand rather than floating in warm water, but the beach is still the reason to come.

Neither town has a cuisine of its own, and both lean upmarket. In Deer Valley you eat resort food in the lodges, or go down to Park City's Main Street, which has a good number of steakhouses, sushi places and après-ski grills but little below that polished level.

Newport Beach has more variety and more sense of place: seafood with harbour views, fish tacos by the sand, frozen bananas on Balboa Island, and excellent Vietnamese cooking in Little Saigon, about twenty minutes inland. Costa Mesa next door adds still more choice.

Neither is a place for sightseeing, and in both an afternoon covers the main sights. What differs is the story they tell. Around Deer Valley it is the story of the American West: Park City's restored silver-mining Main Street, old mine headframes on the slopes, the Park City Museum and the ski jumps built for the 2002 Winter Games.

Newport Beach has seaside resort history and a little architecture instead. There is the 1905 Balboa Pavilion, the Balboa Island ferry and Schindler's Lovell Beach House, a landmark of early modernism. Mostly, though, what you look at is the harbour and the yachts.

Park City's après-ski strip is one small-town street, while Newport Beach has two quite different kinds of evening to choose from, which gives it the edge. Around Deer Valley, a night out means a fireside lounge in the lodge or a drink in the saloons and cocktail bars of Main Street. These are busiest on ski-season weekends and close early by big-city standards, with Utah's liquor rules in the background and most people keen to make first chair.

Newport splits between loud pier bars, packed with a young crowd on summer weekends, and harbour wine bars and hotel lounges for a dressier evening. You won't find real clubs in either town, so a bigger night out means driving to Costa Mesa or Los Angeles.

Deer Valley is by far the bigger outdoor destination. Its own immaculate slopes sit beside Park City Mountain, the powder of Alta and Snowbird is about an hour away, and in summer the ski runs become hundreds of kilometres of biking and hiking trails through aspen and fir. The base area lies at around 2,000m, which takes a day to get used to.

Newport Beach's outdoors is gentler and coastal. You can watch birds and cycle around the Upper Newport Bay estuary, walk the bluff paths at Crystal Cove, kayak in the harbour and go whale watching in any season. Real mountains are an hour's drive inland.

Newport Beach has much more within a day's reach. From Deer Valley, the main outing is Salt Lake City, about forty minutes away, for Temple Square and the State Capitol. Midway, the Heber Valley steam railway and Sundance make smaller trips, and beyond those the great sights are landscape rather than towns.

From Newport, Laguna Beach and Mission San Juan Capistrano are each half an hour or less away, and a ferry crosses to Catalina Island. Los Angeles and San Diego both make realistic days out, as long as you allow for freeway traffic.

Deer Valley works very well for families who ski. It has strong children's ski schools, wide beginner runs and no snowboarders, plus tubing and an alpine coaster at the Olympic Park. Away from the slopes there is little for children, and the altitude can tire the youngest for a day or two.

Newport Beach is the easier choice for most families. Shallow harbour beaches, the Balboa Fun Zone, the island ferry and the tide pools fill the days. Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are about half an hour inland, though the trip means traffic and parking.

Deer Valley is the easier place to manage without a car. Free buses link its base areas with Main Street, Park City Mountain and Kimball Junction, much of the lodging lets you ski to the door, and the historic centre is compact. Any trip beyond town, including to the Cottonwood Canyons, means driving on winter roads.

In Newport Beach you really need a car. The buses are slow and infrequent, the town stretches along the coast and up the hills, and beach parking is hard to find on summer weekends. The exceptions are the Balboa Peninsula and Balboa Island, which are flat, easy to walk or cycle, and linked by the little ferry.

Newport Beach is far better for shopping. In Deer Valley, shopping means Park City's Main Street, with its galleries, western boots and hats, outdoor gear and a few upmarket boutiques, plus an outlet centre at Kimball Junction.

Newport has designer names at the open-air centre above the harbour and one of the country's largest luxury malls ten minutes away in Costa Mesa. It also has boutiques in Corona del Mar and surf shops on the peninsula. Neither town has much in the way of markets or independent design.

Neither is cheap, but Deer Valley is in a class of its own for cost. Slopeside lodging is luxury, lift access is priced at the top of the North American market, and ski school and rental come on top. Summer is a little easier on the budget, and staying in the Heber Valley or Salt Lake City is the usual way to save.

Newport Beach is expensive too, especially at harbour hotels in summer, and car hire, fuel and parking can't be avoided. Even so, staying in Costa Mesa or Irvine and eating at taco and burger places makes a stay noticeably more manageable than a ski week in Deer Valley.

Newport Beach has the fuller programme, though most of it is next door. Deer Valley's highlight comes in summer, when the Utah Symphony's outdoor festival brings picnickers to the Snow Park amphitheatre. The 1920s Egyptian Theatre on Main Street adds plays, comedy and small concerts all year, but winter evenings mostly revolve around dinner.

From Newport, the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa is ten minutes away, with touring Broadway musicals, ballet and the Pacific Symphony. South Coast Repertory, next door, stages new American plays. Opera and big concerts still mean a drive to Los Angeles.

Deer Valley is the more restful stay. Its quiet lodges, fireplaces, hot tubs on snowy terraces and polished hotel spas are built around easing tired legs after skiing. About half an hour away, the Homestead Crater in Midway has a warm spring pool inside a limestone dome.

Newport Beach relaxes you through its slow pace instead: walks on the bluffs, coffee by the harbour and sunsets over the Pacific, with resort spas and yoga studios around Corona del Mar. Summer weekends crowd the peninsula, so it is calmest outside the peak months.