Estes Park or Flagstaff?

Neither town is a swimming destination, and both sit at high altitude far from any coast. In Estes Park the snowmelt lakes are for paddling, fishing and shoreline walks, and real swimming means a pool or the indoor aquatic centre.

Flagstaff has one outdoor option a drive away: the creek pools of Oak Creek Canyon, such as Slide Rock. The water there is cold and the spots are busy at weekends.

Flagstaff eats somewhat better. Its craft breweries downtown and in the Southside have proper patios, and the town adds Mexican and New Mexican cooking, green chile, Navajo tacos and a few more ambitious restaurants. Estes Park offers elk and bison burgers, barbecue, big trail breakfasts and taffy shops, but the choice is narrow and many kitchens shut early or scale back outside summer. Neither is a reason to travel, and both send serious eaters elsewhere.

Flagstaff has far more to see in town. The Lowell Observatory on Mars Hill offers historic telescopes and night viewings, and the Museum of Northern Arizona is a serious collection set in the pines. Add the Riordan Mansion and the brick Route 66 downtown, and a day or two is well spent.

Estes Park really has one sight, the Stanley Hotel, the white hotel that inspired The Shining. The homesteading museum and the MacGregor Ranch fill a wet afternoon at most.

Flagstaff is the livelier of the two, though only by small-town standards. University students fill its taprooms, cocktail bars and old Route 66 saloons on term-time weekends, all within a short walk of each other. In Estes Park the brewery bars on Elkhorn Avenue empty soon after dinner, and the town is mostly asleep by ten, ready for a dawn start in the park.

Both are first-rate mountain bases, but the scenery differs. Estes Park is about one concentrated park: meadows rising to granite peaks and tundra, Longs Peak above it all, lakes like Bear and Emerald, and wildlife in unusual numbers, with the autumn elk rut audible from town.

Flagstaff offers more variety over a wider area. It has volcanic peaks and the black lava of Sunset Crater, a vast ponderosa forest, Sedona's red canyons and the Grand Canyon's South Rim. Its ski area half an hour away and its famously dark skies are things Estes Park cannot match.

Flagstaff has the stronger set of outings. The Grand Canyon is reachable by car or the historic railway from Williams, Sedona and hillside Jerome are close, and cliff dwellings at Montezuma Castle, Sinagua ruins and the Hopi mesas add real history.

From Estes Park the trips lead down to the plains: Boulder's Pearl Street, Fort Collins' Old Town and breweries, and Denver's museums. In summer there is also the drive over to Grand Lake. Both need a car.

Both are easy, relaxed places with children, and both share the same drawbacks of altitude and long drives. Estes Park's appeal is animals and simple fun: elk in the streets, junior ranger programmes, flat lakeside walks, the Prospect Mountain tramway, mini golf and go-karts.

Flagstaff leans towards curious minds. It has telescope evenings, dinosaur displays, sledding in winter and the steam-era train to the canyon. Its museums also give it a rainy-day fallback that Estes Park lacks.

In both towns the centre is walkable and almost everything else needs a car. Estes Park's advantage is its summer free shuttles into the Bear Lake corridor, which spare you the trailhead parking. Flagstaff has a rail station on the long-distance line, local buses and a paved trail network for cycling around town. Its motels are spread out, though, and winter ice can make the mountain roads slow.

Shopping in Estes Park means a single stroll down Elkhorn Avenue. Souvenir T-shirts, taffy and fudge, western wear and outdoor gear sit beside a few galleries of wildlife art. It fills an hour, and for anything more substantial you drive down to Boulder or Denver.

Flagstaff spreads its shops more widely and has more worth taking home. Its downtown blocks add bookshops and independent boutiques to the gear stores, and a regional mall and big-box chains cover the everyday needs that send Estes Park visitors out of town. Its real edge is Native American craft from the surrounding reservations, from woven rugs to turquoise and silver. You find it in galleries and trading posts, not the Native American-style pieces you see on Elkhorn Avenue.

In both towns, when you go matters as much as where. Estes Park has the sharper seasonal swing. Rooms near the national park are expensive from June into early autumn but much cheaper in winter and spring, and a cabin with a kitchen lets a family cook instead of eating out.

Flagstaff stays more moderate across the year. Its peaks come on summer weekends and in school breaks, when it fills up as the bed base for the Grand Canyon, and even then it is far cheaper than a night in Sedona or at the rim. In both places tips, a hire car and park entry fees add to the bill.

The difference is a summer-only programme against a small calendar that runs all year. In Estes Park the events are free concerts at the riverside performance park, music and ghost-story evenings at the Stanley Hotel, and the pipe bands of the Scottish-Irish Highland Festival in September. For theatre or an orchestra the rest of the year, you drive to Boulder or Denver.

Flagstaff's symphony and the university's music school play the campus concert hall in season. The restored Orpheum books folk and indie acts, community theatre stages plays through the year, and local bands play the brewery taprooms at weekends. That is enough for an evening out, but not a reason to plan the trip around it.

The two are on a par here: neither has hot springs or a bathing culture, and both rely on their setting to restore you. In Estes Park that means a riverside cabin, elk at dusk and the hush of winter. Flagstaff offers pine-scented nights and bright stars, and Sedona's resort spas and yoga studios are about an hour away.