Durango, Colorado or Winter Park, Colorado?

Neither town has a beach worth planning around, and the water is cold in both. The difference is in what you do with it. In Durango you float the Animas through town on an inner tube or swim at the small area on Lake Nighthorse. Around Winter Park the snowmelt lakes near Granby and Grand Lake are used for boating and paddling, so if you want to swim, a hotel pool or the hot springs down the valley is the better bet.

Durango feeds you noticeably better. Main Avenue and the streets around it have Southwestern green-chile plates, steakhouses, breakfast cafés and a handful of kitchens cooking Colorado lamb and trout. There is also an unusual number of craft breweries for a town this size, and a summer farmers' market.

Winter Park's food is ski-town fare: burgers at the slopeside lodges, pizza and barbecue along the highway, a couple of breweries and a few steak and elk dinner rooms. There is no market, and on winter weekends tables fill early, so book ahead or eat early.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Durango was built by a railway, and the depot, the roundhouse museum and the Victorian brick and sandstone historic district give you a real afternoon of sights. The college's Southwestern collection adds some depth, and the great Puebloan sites are in the country around the town.

Winter Park grew up around a ski area. Its heritage comes down to the Moffat Tunnel story and a small ranch museum in Fraser, and for a day of museums you have to drive to Denver.

Durango has a little more evening life, and more variety. You can choose between patios on Main Avenue, taprooms full of cyclists and an old saloon with a piano player, and students from the college keep a few bars busy at weekends. In Winter Park, going out means après-ski at the base village and then pubs along the main road, loud on winter weekends but quiet by late evening. Both towns are early-to-bed places with no real clubs.

The scenery is equally strong in both, but suited to different trips. Durango is the better place for warm-weather variety. Mountain-bike singletrack starts at the edge of town, the Colorado Trail begins just north, the Weminuche Wilderness rises above 4,000m, and you can raft the Animas right through the centre. Its ski resort is about half an hour's drive away.

Winter Park puts the snow on your doorstep. There are two connected mountains, Mary Jane with its bumps and tree runs, and a season that often lasts into spring. In summer those slopes become a lift-served bike park, and the moose and high tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park are about an hour north.

Durango has the better day trips. Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings are about an hour west, the narrow-gauge steam train climbs the canyon to Silverton, and the Puebloan ruins at Aztec and Chimney Rock are both within easy reach.

From Winter Park, the old mining streets of Georgetown and Idaho Springs and the boardwalk at Grand Lake make pleasant outings, and Denver is about an hour and a half away. But every trip south goes over Berthoud Pass, where winter storms can close or slow the road. You need a car for most outings from either town.

Winter Park is the easier place to take children. It has a large ski school, learning slopes right at the base and a compact village where nothing is far from the lifts. Off the slopes there is tubing, skating and sleigh rides, and in summer an alpine slide and climbing walls.

Durango suits families who like being outdoors: the steam train, gentle tubing on the river, and Mesa Verde's ladders, which children love. The catch is the long drives. Both towns have little to do indoors on a wet day, and Winter Park's greater altitude, around 2,700m, can give children a rough first night.

Winter Park is a little easier to manage without a car. A free shuttle links the ski base, the town and Fraser, so you can do a ski week without driving, although lodgings are spread along the highway and the main street is a road rather than somewhere to stroll.

Durango's historic centre is flat and walkable, with a riverside trail for walking and cycling and a trolley along the main corridor. Beyond that, the trailheads, the ski area and Mesa Verde all need a hire car.

Durango's Main Avenue is worth an hour or two. There are galleries, Western boots, outdoor gear and shops selling Navajo and Pueblo silver, turquoise and rugs. Winter Park's shops are purely practical, ski rental and tuning, bike shops and a few souvenir stands, useful for anything you forgot to pack but nothing to plan around. Neither town has fashion or luxury shopping.

Neither is cheap, but Durango is easier on the wallet. Rooms are tight in summer and at the peak of the ski season, and the train, rafting trips and a hire car add up. Spring and late autumn bring noticeably lower prices, though, and the trails and the river cost nothing.

A winter week in Winter Park is the costlier trip once you add lift tickets, rentals, lessons and resort-priced meals. Condos in Fraser with a kitchen bring the bill down, and summer is much kinder on the budget.

A night at a performance is far easier to find in Durango, at least in summer. A long-running festival brings chamber and orchestral music to the mountains, the college concert hall hosts touring acts, and there is an old-style melodrama and cowboy shows with a chuckwagon supper outside town.

Winter Park offers free summer concerts in the town park and bands in the après-ski bars, with no theatre or regular programme. For a proper night out, the advice is to go to Denver.

Mineral water is the main way to unwind in Durango, and there is more of it close at hand. Spring-fed pools sit a few minutes north of town, and the terraced pools at Pagosa Springs and the springs at Ouray make good longer outings.

In Winter Park, rest mostly means the hot tub at your condo and a massage at one of the resort spas. The real soak is at Hot Sulphur Springs, about half an hour west. The quieter weeks of late spring and autumn are the calmest time for it.