Denver or Portland?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Portland gives you a little more. In summer locals swim in the Willamette and the Columbia from small sandy beaches downtown, in Sellwood and on Sauvie Island. The Oregon coast at Cannon Beach, about an hour and a half away, offers wide sand and sea stacks to walk among, though the cold Pacific keeps most people out of the water.

Denver is landlocked. Swimming means the reservoir beaches at Cherry Creek and Chatfield state parks, or a hotel or public pool, and the mountain lakes stay cold even in high summer.

Both are beer cities with taprooms everywhere, but Portland is the better place to eat. Its food cart pods offer Thai, Georgian and barbecue at shared tables, and its neighbourhood restaurants cook with salmon, Dungeness crab, mushrooms and hazelnuts from the region. Coffee roasters and Willamette Valley pinot noir add more to the drinking than Denver can match.

Denver's best dishes have a Southwestern accent: green chile smothered over burritos, Colorado lamb and bison, and Vietnamese and Mexican cooking along Federal Boulevard. It is good, casual eating, but less of it is worth travelling for. Neither city does much grand fine dining.

Denver has the slightly fuller set of sights, and most of them sit together around Civic Center Park. There you will find the gold-domed Capitol, the Denver Art Museum with its titanium-clad wing and its Native American collection, and the single-artist Clyfford Still Museum. Union Station and the brick warehouses of LoDo keep the gold-rush city's commercial past in view.

Portland's best sights are its gardens rather than its museums. The walled Lan Su Chinese Garden and the Japanese Garden in Washington Park are the highlights, and Pittock Mansion looks across to Mount Hood. Each city fills two or three days comfortably.

A night out in either city means bars rather than clubs, and both close around 2am or a little after. The difference is in the setting. Denver's evenings centre on LoDo, which fills with sports crowds on game nights, along with RiNo's warehouse taprooms and the scruffy dive bars of East Colfax. Be aware that the altitude makes drinks hit harder.

Portland spreads its bars across neighbourhood strips like Alberta, Mississippi, Division and Belmont, with wine bars and pinball dives among the taprooms. A night there tends to be a long, quiet evening in one area.

Both cities are superb bases for the outdoors, but the landscapes could hardly differ more. Denver's are high and dry: the red sandstone of Red Rocks and the foothill trails above Golden within half an hour, dozens of summits over 4,000m further in, and elk and alpine tundra in Rocky Mountain National Park. The sun keeps it good in every season, and in winter the big ski resorts are a couple of hours up the motorway.

Portland's are green and wet. Forest Park, one of the largest urban forests in the country, begins a short walk from the northwest streets, and the cliffs and waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge are close by. Windsurfing at Hood River and summer skiing on Mount Hood's glacier have no match near Denver, but the long wet winters leave summer as the season to come.

The day trips are equally good, and in both cities they mean hiring a car, but the flavour is different. From Denver you head into the Old West: Victorian mining towns at Georgetown and Idaho Springs, the narrow-gauge railway, Boulder under the Flatirons, and Manitou Springs paired with the Air Force Academy.

From Portland the classic day out is wine tasting in the Willamette Valley, under an hour away. Further afield are the maritime port of Astoria, a coast day at Cannon Beach, and orchards around Hood River.

Denver is the easier city with children. The zoo and the Museum of Nature & Science, with its dinosaurs and planetarium, share City Park, while the Children's Museum, an aquarium and an amusement park sit together by the South Platte. Older children can ride scenic railways and walk easy mountain trails, but watch the altitude and the strong sun with little ones.

Portland has a fine science museum in OMSI, with a submarine to climb through, along with the zoo in Washington Park and Oaks Park in Sellwood. The wet winters push families indoors, though, and visible homelessness in parts of downtown bothers some parents.

Portland is much easier without a car. The MAX runs from the airport to downtown, the short blocks make walking a pleasure, and the streetcar and wide bridge paths link the Pearl District with the east bank. It is also one of the more bike-friendly cities in the country.

Denver's centre is compact, with a train from the airport to Union Station and a free shuttle along the 16th Street Mall. Beyond downtown, though, the city is built around the car. In both cities a car is close to essential for the mountains and day trips.

Portland is the better city for browsing. Powell's City of Books fills a whole block and is worth a visit in itself, Mississippi, Alberta and Hawthorne are lined with vintage, record and maker shops, and the Saturday Market sells local crafts. Oregon also has no sales tax.

Denver's shopping is concentrated in the Cherry Creek mall and the boutiques around it, plus vintage on South Broadway. Its real strengths are Western wear and big outdoor gear stores. Neither city does much luxury.

Both cities carry normal American big-city prices, with dear downtown hotels, tipping on every meal and a hired car for trips out of town. In Denver, hotel rates peak in ski season and during conventions. Staying near a light rail line and eating at taquerias and breweries keeps costs down.

Portland offers a few more ways to save. Food carts are among its best places to eat, transit fares are low, there is no sales tax, and much of the fun is simply walking the neighbourhoods.

Denver has the bigger stage, and above all it has Red Rocks Amphitheatre, where a summer concert between the sandstone monoliths is reason enough to visit. Downtown, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts brings theatre, Broadway tours, the symphony, opera and ballet together in one complex covering several blocks. Five Points adds jazz with deep local roots.

Portland's symphony, opera and ballet hold full seasons, with the symphony playing in a restored 1920s movie palace. Its stronger suit is indie rock and folk in small east-side rooms and the sprung floor of the Crystal Ballroom.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, and both rely on hotel and day spas, so the difference lies in what is nearby. From Denver, the historic mineral pools and steam caves at Idaho Springs are under an hour away, and there are larger hot-spring resorts deeper in the mountains.

Portland has soaking houses with saunas and cold plunges in its residential neighbourhoods, but its hot springs are two hours away in the Cascades. Its gardens and slow café mornings make it the gentler city to unwind in.