Flagstaff or Los Angeles?

Flagstaff has no beach of any kind. The nearest swimming is in the cold creek pools at Slide Rock in Oak Creek Canyon, which make a summer outing rather than a beach day. Los Angeles has more than 100km of sand, from the Malibu coves past Santa Monica and Venice to the South Bay and Long Beach. Along it you find surf breaks, volleyball nets and boardwalks.

The Pacific stays cool even there, so most people wear a wetsuit for anything more than a paddle. Still, Los Angeles has a real beach life, which Flagstaff cannot offer at all.

Flagstaff's best meals are a pint and a burger on a brewery patio downtown or in the Southside, with Navajo tacos and green chile as the local touch. Los Angeles is in another league. It has Koreatown charcoal barbecue, regional Chinese cooking in the San Gabriel Valley, Thai Town, Oaxacan kitchens and taco trucks across the Eastside, with a serious chef-driven tier on top.

If eating well is part of the point of your trip, Los Angeles wins easily. In Flagstaff, food is fuel between hikes.

Flagstaff's sights are few, but they are distinctive. The Lowell Observatory on Mars Hill, where Pluto was discovered in 1930, opens its historic telescopes for night viewings. The Museum of Northern Arizona holds serious Hopi, Navajo and Zuni collections among the pines. Add the Riordan Mansion and the brick railroad-era downtown on old Route 66, and a day or two covers the town. Its real strength is Native American heritage tied to the land, with ancient pueblo sites a short drive away.

Los Angeles has enough for a week. The Getty Center, LACMA, the Broad and the Huntington's library and gardens make a deep art circuit, and Griffith Observatory looks out towards the Hollywood Sign. Hollywood adds its old movie palaces and studio lots, and architecture fans come for the Art Deco downtown and the mid-century houses. What Los Angeles lacks is an old city, and its sights are far apart. Even so, its collections are much larger and richer than anything in Flagstaff.

A night out in Flagstaff is a walk between brewery taprooms and old Route 66 saloons. Students make it livelier in term time, but most places close well before the small hours. Los Angeles has real range: velvet-rope clubs in Hollywood, the gay strip on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, rooftop bars downtown and dive bars in Silver Lake and Echo Park. Even so, bars stop serving at 2am and the districts are far apart, so a night out there usually stays in one neighbourhood.

Flagstaff has the edge, because the outdoors is the whole point of going. From town you walk straight into ponderosa forest, climb towards Humphreys Peak or cross the lava at Sunset Crater. The South Rim of the Grand Canyon is about an hour and a half away, and the night skies are some of the darkest of any town.

Los Angeles does remarkably well for a city its size. It has Griffith Park, the Santa Monica Mountains and the San Gabriels behind the basin, plus surfing, kayaking and boats out to the Channel Islands. The difference is getting there. Flagstaff's trailheads are minutes away, while in Los Angeles traffic stands between you and most of it.

Both cities offer a good spread of drives rather than one standout excursion, and both need a car. From Flagstaff, the trips are mostly about ancient and frontier history: the Sinagua ruins at Walnut Canyon and Wupatki, Montezuma Castle, the hillside mining town of Jerome and the Hopi mesas.

From Los Angeles, they are about the coast and wine. Choices include Spanish Colonial Santa Barbara, the ferry to Catalina, Laguna Beach and Ojai, with Palm Springs and San Diego at the outer limit. The roads out of Flagstaff are quiet, while Los Angeles traffic can add an hour in either direction.

Flagstaff is relaxed and easy with children. There are telescope evenings at Lowell, dinosaur displays at the museum, rope courses in the pines and sledding in winter, although the altitude and cold nights take some getting used to. Los Angeles has far more to fill a family week: Disneyland, Universal Studios, the space shuttle at the California Science Center, the La Brea Tar Pits and the Long Beach aquarium, with beaches in between.

The price in Los Angeles is time in the car. Families there do best keeping each day to one part of the city.

Neither city is easy without a car, but for different reasons. Flagstaff's downtown and Southside are compact and walkable, and a paved trail network makes cycling practical. But the mountain, the national monuments and the Grand Canyon all lie beyond public transport, and winter snow can make the mountain roads hard going.

Los Angeles has Metro rail lines linking downtown, Hollywood, Pasadena, Long Beach and Santa Monica, but the basin is huge and the freeways jam. In Flagstaff you need a car to leave town. In Los Angeles you need one to get across it.

Flagstaff's one real reason to shop is Native American craft: Navajo rugs, Hopi kachina carvings, pottery and turquoise jewellery from downtown galleries and roadside trading posts. Buy from established dealers or from the artists themselves. Los Angeles is a shopping destination in its own right, from the luxury houses of Rodeo Drive to Melrose streetwear, the boutiques on Abbot Kinney and the vintage stalls at the Rose Bowl flea market. Go to Flagstaff for one meaningful piece, and to Los Angeles for a whole new wardrobe.

Flagstaff is the cheaper of the two. Chain motels along Route 66 and brewery meals keep costs reasonable, although rooms jump on summer weekends, when the town fills up as the bed base for the Grand Canyon. Los Angeles is expensive. Hotels in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and West Hollywood cost a lot, and parking and theme park tickets add up quickly.

In both places you need a hire car and pay tips, so neither is cheap for international visitors. Los Angeles makes up for it with cheap Koreatown and taco-truck meals and free sights such as Griffith Observatory and the Getty. In Flagstaff, the forest trails around town cost nothing.

Flagstaff has a modest, likeable calendar. The symphony and university musicians play on campus, touring folk and indie acts come to the restored Orpheum, and local bands play in the breweries at weekends. Los Angeles is one of the world's great music cities. It has the Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall, summer picnics at the Hollywood Bowl, LA Opera, Broadway tours at the Pantages and the rock venues of the Sunset Strip.

Add Hollywood's comedy and improv clubs and the long jazz tradition of Leimert Park, and there is something worth booking every night of the week.

Flagstaff relaxes you with quiet, pine-scented air and starry nights rather than spas, and people who want treatments drive down to Sedona. Los Angeles has the real thing in Koreatown's bathhouses, which open late with hot and cold pools and body scrubs, plus the spas of Beverly Hills and yoga studios everywhere. The catch is that the city itself is tiring, while evenings in Flagstaff are calm without any effort.