Estes Park or Santa Fe?

Both towns are high and inland, so neither offers a beach and for most visitors swimming means a hotel pool. What differs is the water nearby. Estes Park's lakes are fed by snowmelt and too cold for anything but paddling or fishing. Santa Fe's summer heat makes a swim in Abiquiu Lake or a float on the Rio Grande a reasonable day out.

Santa Fe is a real reason to travel for food. New Mexican cooking, with red or green chile, blue corn, posole and sopaipillas, is a cuisine of its own. The city also has fine restaurants and one of the country's oldest farmers' markets at the Railyard.

Estes Park feeds hungry hikers: burgers, barbecue, elk and bison, big breakfasts, craft breweries and taffy shops on Elkhorn Avenue. It is satisfying, but many kitchens shut early, and anyone who wants a memorable meal drives down to Boulder.

Santa Fe is far ahead on culture. The city was founded in 1610 and still looks like it, with the adobe Plaza, the Palace of the Governors, the cathedral and the Loretto Chapel's spiral staircase. Museum Hill and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum easily fill two or three days.

Estes Park has one famous building, the Stanley Hotel, which inspired The Shining. You can tour it for its history and ghost stories. After that there is only a homesteading museum and a historic ranch, which are best kept for a rainy afternoon.

Neither town is for a big night out, but Santa Fe has more going on after dark. A long dinner followed by a mezcal on a rooftop as the sun sets behind the Jemez Mountains makes a good evening, and the Plaza and the Railyard bars stay lively in summer. Estes Park has a few taprooms and saloon-style bars on Elkhorn Avenue that empty by ten, because most people are up before dawn for wildlife and trails.

Estes Park has the stronger mountain country. Right from town you can reach meadows, ponderosa forest and alpine tundra beneath Longs Peak, with hundreds of kilometres of trail to lakes and waterfalls. Elk, moose and bighorn sheep are everyday sights.

Santa Fe's outdoors are more varied, though. Foothill trails lead up into the Pecos Wilderness, and in the other direction lie desert mesas, Valles Caldera, rafting in the Rio Grande Gorge and the red cliffs around Abiquiu. Santa Fe also has a ski area less than an hour from the Plaza, which Estes Park does not.

From Santa Fe, many of the day trips are destinations in their own right. The High Road through Chimayo and Truchas leads to Taos Pueblo, which has been lived in for about a thousand years. Bandelier's cliff dwellings, Los Alamos, Pecos and the Turquoise Trail villages are all within reach.

Estes Park's day trips take you down to the plains, to Boulder's Pearl Street, Fort Collins' Old Town and the museums of Denver. In summer you can also drive over Trail Ridge Road to Grand Lake. These are pleasant outings, but Santa Fe's are more distinctive.

Estes Park suits children better. Elk walk through town, the national park runs junior ranger activities, Sprague and Bear Lakes have flat walks, and there are go-karts, horse rides and the Prospect Mountain tramway. Its weak spot is rainy days, when there is little to do indoors.

Santa Fe has a children's museum, the toys and miniatures in the folk art collection, and ladders to climb at Bandelier. Still, the city is built around galleries and long dinners, so it works best for older children who enjoy history.

Both have a small centre you can walk, and in both a car is close to essential for anything further. Santa Fe has a slight edge. The Plaza, Canyon Road and the Railyard are all within about twenty minutes' walk of each other, and the Rail Runner train runs to Albuquerque. Estes Park has no rail link at all. What it offers instead are free summer shuttles to the Bear Lake trailheads, which save you hunting for parking on busy weekends.

In Santa Fe, shopping means buying art and craft seriously. Native American artists sell silver, turquoise and pottery under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, galleries line Canyon Road and the Railyard, and the Indian Market and the Spanish Market draw collectors every summer.

Estes Park's Elkhorn Avenue is good for an hour's browsing among souvenirs, western wear, outdoor gear and wildlife photography. For anything more you would drive down to Boulder.

Both cost about the same, and both are expensive, with resort-level room rates and a hire car that most visitors need. What differs is how to save. Estes Park is far cheaper in winter and spring, and cabins with kitchens let families cook for themselves. Santa Fe costs most during the summer markets, the opera season and Christmas, and you can pay less by staying out along Cerrillos Road. The best things in each are free: the trails and wildlife in Estes Park, and the Plaza and gallery browsing in Santa Fe.

Santa Fe has a real summer season. The Santa Fe Opera performs in an open-sided theatre as the sun sets over the desert, and it is known for rarely staged works. There is also a chamber music festival and a long tradition of flamenco. The rest of the year is quieter, with touring shows at the historic Lensic and concerts in the old churches.

Estes Park offers free riverside concerts in summer and the Scottish-Irish Highland Festival in September, and not much else.

Santa Fe is the better place to be looked after. It has outdoor soaking tubs among the pines in the style of a Japanese onsen, an unusual number of spas and yoga studios, and the old mineral springs at Ojo Caliente about an hour north.

In Estes Park, relaxing means a riverside cabin, mountain air and elk at dusk, with only a few lodge spas and no hot springs. It is most restful in winter and spring, when the summer crowds have gone.