Flagstaff or Phoenix?

Neither city offers a beach vacation, since both are several hours inland. The kind of swimming does differ, though. Around Flagstaff it means the cold, slippery creek pools of Oak Creek Canyon and Slide Rock on a summer day. In Phoenix it means resort pools with lazy rivers, the small beaches at Saguaro and Canyon lakes, and tubing down the Salt River.

Phoenix eats noticeably better. It has a regional cuisine of its own in Sonoran borderland cooking: machaca, paper-thin flour tortillas and bacon-wrapped hot dogs from evening carts. Add a strong reputation for wood-fired pizza and polished resort dining in Scottsdale, and the range is wider.

Flagstaff's strength is its beer, from the breweries clustered downtown and in Southside. Its food is mostly diner, burger and New Mexican cooking, with the occasional plate of Navajo frybread. It feeds hungry hikers well enough but rarely gives anyone a meal to remember.

Phoenix has the stronger museums. The Heard Museum's Native American collection, the Musical Instrument Museum and Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West are each worth half a day, but they sit far apart, and the city has no old centre to wander.

Flagstaff's list is shorter but has more sense of place. You get the Lowell Observatory, where Pluto was discovered, the Museum of Northern Arizona's Hopi and Navajo collections, and a brick Route 66 railroad downtown you can cover on foot in a day or two.

A night out in Phoenix offers real choice. There are clubs and rooftop bars in Old Town Scottsdale, cheap student drinking on Tempe's Mill Avenue and cocktail lounges around Roosevelt Row. The districts are far apart, though, so you pick one and take a ride-hail home.

Flagstaff is a gentler evening of taprooms, a few cocktail bars and old Route 66 saloons, all a short walk apart. There are hardly any clubs and most places close early, which suits people with an early start for the Grand Canyon.

Both are outdoor destinations, but Flagstaff has more to offer. The San Francisco Peaks rise to 3,850m above one of the largest ponderosa forests in the world, Sunset Crater's cinder cones lie just north of town and the Grand Canyon's South Rim is about an hour and a half away. The high altitude keeps all of it walkable in summer.

Phoenix has a different kind of landscape: saguaro forest in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, steep scrambles up Camelback Mountain and the huge South Mountain park, all starting from the suburbs. The desert heat closes most of it after mid-morning from late spring to early autumn.

The two share much of the same day-trip country. Jerome, Montezuma Castle and Sedona are reachable from both, Sedona more easily from Flagstaff. The difference is in what lies beyond. Flagstaff adds the Grand Canyon by historic railway from Williams, the Sinagua ruins at Walnut Canyon and Wupatki, and the Hopi mesas.

Phoenix looks south to Tucson's adobe barrios and Mission San Xavier del Bac, and has Prescott's saloon street and cowboy Wickenburg closer in. From either base you need a car.

Both work for families, in different seasons. Flagstaff offers telescope evenings at Lowell, dinosaur displays, summer rope courses and winter sledding on the mountain, against altitude that tires small children and nights that are cold even in summer.

Phoenix has the bigger set of attractions: a zoo, an aquarium, a science centre, water parks and resort pools with slides. They are spread across a huge metro area, though, and from June to September the heat keeps young children indoors after early morning.

Flagstaff is a little easier without a car. Its downtown and Southside are compact enough to walk, an urban trail network makes cycling practical and long-distance trains stop at the downtown station. Once you head for the mountain, the monuments or the canyon, though, you are driving.

Phoenix is harder still. It is a flat grid of arterial roads covering dozens of kilometres, with one light rail line running from the airport through downtown to Tempe. Summer heat makes even short walks unpleasant, so a rental car is close to essential.

Phoenix is the better place to shop. Scottsdale's large luxury mall and the open-air centre near the Biltmore carry the international brands, and Old Town adds Western wear and galleries.

Both are good places to buy Navajo silver, Hopi carvings and rugs. Flagstaff's trading posts and museum shop put you closer to the source, but beyond that the town has outdoor gear, a few bookshops and Route 66 souvenirs.

Costs are much the same in both, and in both a hire car and tipping add to the bill. What differs is when prices peak. Flagstaff's rooms rise on summer weekends, when it fills as the bed base for the Grand Canyon. Phoenix is dearest from January to April and drops sharply in summer, when the heat empties its resorts.

Flagstaff's stage is smaller and more modest. The symphony and the university music school perform on campus, the restored Orpheum downtown brings in touring folk and indie acts, and community theatre carries on through the year. Summer adds outdoor concerts in the pines. It makes a good evening out, but not a reason to go.

Phoenix keeps a proper big-city calendar. Arizona Opera and Ballet Arizona run full seasons, the symphony plays at Symphony Hall, touring Broadway shows fill Wright's round ASU Gammage in Tempe and the Musical Instrument Museum has an intimate concert hall. Most of it runs from autumn to spring.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Phoenix and Scottsdale are a classic American resort-spa destination, with big desert properties beneath Camelback Mountain, several pools apiece and treatments built on clay and agave, all at their best in the dry winter warmth.

Flagstaff offers quiet rather than pampering: cool evenings, pine air and bright stars. Anyone wanting a spa usually drives down to Sedona.