Durango, Colorado or Huntington Beach?

This is where Huntington Beach pulls furthest ahead. It has about 14km of flat sand with volleyball nets, fire rings and lifeguard towers, and the beach is the reason the town exists. The Pacific stays cool for much of the year and rip currents mean you swim near the towers, but in late summer it is a proper beach vacation.

Durango is a mountain town a long way from any coast. Water there means a small swimming area at Lake Nighthorse, a few sandy edges at Vallecito Lake or tubing down the cold Animas on a hot afternoon. It is a pleasant extra, not a reason to go.

The two are close, and both eat casually. Durango offers green-chile plates, steakhouses, Colorado lamb and trout, and an unusual number of craft breweries for its size. The taproom at the end of a day outside is the best part of eating there.

Huntington Beach has a slight edge, mostly because of what lies inland. In town you get fish tacos and seafood with ocean views, but Little Saigon in Westminster and Garden Grove is worth a special trip for pho and banh mi. Good Mexican cooking is spread across the county too, which is a wider range than Durango can offer.

Neither is a culture destination, but Durango has more to see. A railway founded the town in 1880, and steam engines still leave from the old depot on Main Avenue, with the roundhouse museum letting you see them up close. Around them, a few blocks of Victorian brick and sandstone hotels and saloons make a real historic centre, and the college on the mesa holds a respected Southwestern and Native American collection.

Huntington Beach's sights are the pier, the International Surfing Museum and the Surfers' Hall of Fame handprints at the foot of Main Street. Beyond them lie postwar suburbs and oil-field history with little old architecture, so serious museums mean a drive to Los Angeles.

Huntington Beach is the better bet for a night out, though only on weekends and only on one strip. Main Street fills on Fridays and Saturdays with sports bars, rooftop decks and a few places to dance, and the crowd is young and loud until closing at 2am.

Durango's evenings are a pint on a Main Avenue patio, a brewery taproom or a drink in an old saloon with a piano player. There is almost no dancing, and most of the town is in bed well before midnight to make an early start.

Durango is in a different league here. The San Juan Mountains rise straight from the Animas valley, with famous mountain-bike singletrack, the start of the Colorado Trail and wilderness peaks above 4,000m. Rafting and fly-fishing are in town, and deep winter snow brings skiing and nordic trails.

Huntington Beach's outdoors is the ocean: consistent surf, paddling in the harbour channels and excellent birding at the Bolsa Chica wetlands. Crystal Cove's canyon trails are half an hour south, but the land around town is mostly flat and built up.

Both make good bases, and both need a car, but the days out are very different. From Durango you drive to the ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde or ride the steam train up the canyon to Silverton. Ouray, the ruins at Aztec and the hot springs of Pagosa Springs give you more mountain and desert history.

From Huntington Beach the trips are to cities and the coast: Los Angeles about an hour away, the arts town of Laguna Beach, Mission San Juan Capistrano, the ferry to Catalina Island and a longer day to San Diego or the Temecula wine country.

Huntington Beach is the easier family base. Disneyland and California Adventure are half an hour inland, Knott's Berry Farm is closer, and the Aquarium of the Pacific makes an easy morning. Back in town there is the beach, pelicans at Bolsa Chica and the lakes of Central Park. The waves suit boogie boarding more than toddlers.

Durango works for families who like being outdoors. Children love the steam train, gentle river tubing and the alpine coaster, and Mesa Verde's ladders bring history to life. With no zoo, aquarium or big museum, though, a rainy day is hard to fill, and the altitude can tire small children at first.

You will want a car in both, but Durango is a little easier on foot. Its centre is small and flat enough to walk from the depot to the top of Main Avenue in a quarter of an hour. A trolley runs along the main corridor and a riverside trail links the parks.

In Huntington Beach, the walkable area is the pier and Main Street, and a rented bike along the beachfront path is the nicest way to get about. Everything else, from the theme parks to Little Saigon, means busy freeways and slow, infrequent buses.

Huntington Beach has more range. Main Street sells surfboards, swimwear and surf-brand clothing, and South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, about twenty minutes away, has the major fashion houses under one roof.

Durango's Main Avenue fills an hour or two with outdoor gear, Western boots, galleries and Navajo and Pueblo turquoise and silver. The jewellery is the more distinctive souvenir, but there is no fashion or luxury shopping at all.

Neither is cheap, but Durango is a little gentler on the wallet. It costs less than the famous Colorado ski towns, spring and late autumn bring noticeably lower rates, and the trails and river are free.

Huntington Beach is expensive coast. Beachfront hotels charge high rates in summer and at weekends, and parking adds to the cost of the rental car. The savings are motels on the inland boulevards and the Vietnamese and Mexican cooking of the surrounding county.

Both are thin on stage life in town, and the difference lies in what you can reach. In summer, Durango has its own character: a chamber and orchestral festival, a Victorian melodrama where the audience boos the villain, and chuckwagon suppers with cowboy music. Out of season there is little on.

Huntington Beach itself offers bar bands and park concerts. It edges ahead because Costa Mesa is close by, with the Pacific Symphony, touring Broadway shows, ballet and opera at the Segerstrom Center and South Coast Repertory's theatre season.

Durango has the better way to unwind: hot springs. Mineral pools a few minutes north of town are ideal after a ride or a ski day, and the terraced pools at Pagosa Springs and the springs at Ouray are within reach.

Huntington Beach has no natural baths. Relaxing there means a resort spa, yoga on the sand, a sunset walk on the pier and an evening by a beach fire. That suits someone happy to do very little, but it is not a place for soaking.