Fort Collins or Salt Lake City?

Neither city is a place for a beach vacation, and both send swimmers to mountain reservoirs on hot summer days. Fort Collins has the more convenient option, with Horsetooth Reservoir's swim beach and coves just west of town.

Salt Lake City's swimming spots, Jordanelle, Deer Creek and Pineview, are a drive into the Wasatch. What it has instead is the oddity of floating in the Great Salt Lake from Antelope Island, which most people try once for the experience rather than spending the day there.

The two are broadly level for eating, but they are good at different things. Fort Collins is about beer: long-established breweries with tours north of Old Town, taprooms all over the city, and food trucks outside. The cooking itself is gastropub and farm-to-table fare with little local character.

Salt Lake City is the better place for curious eaters. The Mexican, Pacific Islander, Peruvian and Vietnamese kitchens along State Street are the highlight, and local quirks like fry sauce and dirty sodas add some fun. Utah's drinking rules make wine and cocktails thinner on the ground there.

Salt Lake City has much more to see. Temple Square alone fills a morning, with the granite temple, the domed Tabernacle and its organ, and the Conference Center. The Capitol, the painted Cathedral of the Madeleine and the dinosaur halls of the Natural History Museum add a second day.

In Fort Collins, the main sight is simply Old Town's red-brick streets, with the Museum of Discovery and the Avery House as modest extras. A single unhurried day covers it.

Fort Collins makes for the livelier night out, though neither is a city for clubbing. Thanks to the university, Old Town's pubs, sports bars and rooftop patios are full at weekends, and the taprooms stay busy into the evening.

Salt Lake City has its bars and a few clubs downtown and in the Granary District, along with a long-standing gay scene. However, licensing limits and an early-to-bed city keep evenings shorter.

Both cities sit right where the mountains begin, but Salt Lake City's mountains are bigger and closer. The Wasatch rises above 3,000m straight from the edge of town, the Cottonwood Canyons hold famous powder skiing and alpine hiking, and Antelope Island and the Bonneville Salt Flats add desert scenery to the west.

Fort Collins answers with foothill trails at Horsetooth and Lory State Park and rafting and fly fishing in the wild Poudre Canyon. Rocky Mountain National Park is about an hour and a half away. There is no downhill skiing nearby.

Fort Collins has the better choice of outings. Boulder beneath the Flatirons, Denver's museums, Estes Park, Golden, and Cheyenne across the Wyoming line are all easy drives, even if few of them are remarkable.

From Salt Lake City, Park City's Victorian Main Street is the outstanding trip, with Midway, Heber and Ogden's 25th Street close behind. After that the choice drops off, and Utah's famous national parks are too far for a day.

Salt Lake City is far better set up for children. Hogle Zoo, the Living Planet Aquarium, Discovery Gateway, Tracy Aviary and Lagoon amusement park give it the big attractions, and with large families the norm, children are welcome almost everywhere.

Fort Collins is gentler and smaller. It has playgrounds, the farm at Lee Martinez Park, the Museum of Discovery and tubing on the river, but for zoos or rides it means driving to Denver.

Both centres are manageable and both cities need a car beyond them, but they move people in different ways. Fort Collins is a cycling city, with a flat, compact Old Town, protected lanes and riverside trails that connect the breweries, campus and parks.

Salt Lake City relies on rail. TRAX runs to the airport and the university, and FrontRunner goes to Ogden and Provo. Its huge blocks and wide streets make walking slower than the map suggests, and winter ski buses climb the canyons.

Salt Lake City offers somewhat more. City Creek Center has department stores, Trolley Square fills old streetcar barns with shops, and excellent local ski and climbing outfitters are a real draw for outdoor enthusiasts.

Fort Collins keeps to a few blocks of Old Town boutiques, bookshops, bike shops and vintage clothing. That is pleasant for an hour's browsing but rarely more.

Costs are much the same in both, moderate for the United States, with tax and tip on meals and a hire car as the main extra. The difference is in what pushes the bill up. In Fort Collins it is graduation and football weekends that send hotel rates up.

In Salt Lake City a winter ski week with lift tickets and canyon lodging costs far more than a summer trip spent on free trails and Temple Square.

Fort Collins has a respectable programme for a city its size, but much of it comes from elsewhere: touring shows at the Lincoln Center, the university's term-time concerts and small Old Town stages for bluegrass and indie bands. For anything bigger, the usual answer is the drive to Denver.

Salt Lake City has more of its own. Its resident symphony, opera company, ballet and repertory theatre give it a full season of home-grown work, not just what passes through on tour. Then there is the Tabernacle Choir, which visitors can hear rehearse or broadcast beneath the great organ. Fort Collins has nothing to set against it.

Neither is a spa destination, but Salt Lake City has the better soak within reach. It is about an hour to the warm mineral water inside Midway's limestone Homestead Crater, and resort spas wait at the end of a ski day.

Fort Collins has no hot springs nearby, so relaxing there means day spas, yoga and slow afternoons on its shaded river paths.