Fort Collins or Sedona?

Neither town is a swimming destination, and both offer only a summer sideline, though Sedona's is slightly more memorable. At Fort Collins it means Horsetooth Reservoir, with a designated swim beach, coves and paddleboards on warm afternoons.

Sedona swaps open water for Oak Creek: sliding down the sandstone chute at Slide Rock and swimming in deep pools under red cliffs at Grasshopper Point. The water stays cold and the spots are small and crowded on hot weekends, but the setting is more distinctive than a reservoir.

Fort Collins comes out ahead, mostly because of what is poured there. It is one of America's best-known craft-beer towns, with big brewery tours and taprooms across the city, plus Old Town gastropubs, taco spots and summer farmers' markets selling Colorado produce.

Sedona eats well in a narrower range: Southwestern dishes, health-minded and vegetarian menus, and resort terraces where the sunset over the red rocks matters as much as the plate. Wine tasting in the Verde Valley is its answer to the breweries, but the choice of good kitchens runs out quickly.

Neither is a sightseeing town, and each takes about a day. Fort Collins offers a townscape: a late nineteenth-century Old Town of red brick and sandstone, Victorian and Craftsman districts, the Museum of Discovery and the university's art museum.

Sedona's sights are scattered single landmarks. There is the Chapel of the Holy Cross set into a butte, galleries of Western and Native American art, and Sinagua cliff dwellings and petroglyphs out in the backcountry, which give it a deeper sense of the past.

This is one of the widest gaps between them. With a large student population, Fort Collins keeps Old Town busy on weekend nights with pubs, sports bars, rooftop patios, cocktail bars and taprooms, casual rather than late, and a few dance clubs.

Sedona barely has a night out. A few brewpubs, wine bars and resort lounges suit one drink after dinner, the town goes to bed early ahead of dawn hikes, and the best thing to do after dark is look at the stars.

Both are outdoor towns, but Sedona's landscape is in a different league. Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, Devil's Bridge and Boynton Canyon rise right beside town, the slickrock singletrack draws mountain bikers from far away, and Oak Creek Canyon and the Grand Canyon's South Rim lie within reach.

Fort Collins counters with variety rather than spectacle. It has foothills summits at Horsetooth and Lory, rafting and fly fishing on the wild and scenic Cache la Poudre, an excellent in-town trail network, and alpine lakes and elk in Rocky Mountain National Park about an hour and a half away.

The two are fairly level here, but the outings differ in kind. From Fort Collins, the pull is towns and cities: Boulder under the Flatirons, Denver's big museums, Estes Park, and the frontier capital of Cheyenne just over the Wyoming line.

Sedona's excursions lean towards the ancient and the scenic. Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot pueblo are nearby, the hillside mining town of Jerome is close, the Verde Canyon Railroad and its tasting rooms are down the valley, and Flagstaff opens the way to Walnut Canyon and Wupatki. All of them are small and need a car.

Fort Collins is the easier base with children. It has playgrounds in every neighbourhood, flat river paths for small bikes, the hands-on Museum of Discovery, a city farm with animals and a children's garden, and gentle river tubing and reservoir days in summer.

Sedona works best for families who already love the outdoors. Slide Rock and jeep tours go down well, but there is little else aimed at children, many hotels are geared to couples, and the heat and exposed trails need care with young walkers.

Fort Collins is much easier to manage. Old Town is flat and walkable, a rapid-bus line runs north to south, and protected bike lanes, bike share and long trails make cycling between breweries, campus and parks natural. The foothills and day trips still need a car.

Sedona is spread along two highways meeting at the Y, with only Uptown walkable and a shuttle to a few busy trailheads. A car is close to essential, weekend traffic and full trailhead car parks are common, and most visitors arrive with a two-hour drive from Phoenix.

Sedona has a slight edge and a much stronger character. Tlaquepaque's courtyard arts village, roadside galleries selling Native American jewellery, pottery and rugs, and the town's crystal and metaphysical shops give it purchases you would not find elsewhere.

Fort Collins offers pleasant browsing in Old Town's independent boutiques, bookshops, vintage stores and outdoor and cycling shops, with chain retail out on the highways. Neither has fashion or department-store shopping worth the trip.

Fort Collins is clearly the cheaper stay. Highway chain hotels and casual brewery meals keep it moderate, and trails, river paths and Old Town cost nothing, though graduation and football weekends lift room rates and a hire car adds up.

Sedona is a resort town, and almost everything costs resort prices, from lodging and dinners to jeep tours, balloon flights and spa treatments. The trails need little more than a parking pass, and many budget travellers sleep in Cottonwood or Flagstaff and drive in.

Fort Collins has a real if regional programme. The Lincoln Center hosts touring Broadway, dance and the local symphony, the university's arts centre stages opera, theatre and concerts in term time, and Old Town bar stages book indie, bluegrass and rock bands, with free outdoor concerts in summer.

Sedona has occasions rather than a season: chamber concerts, community theatre, the long-running film festival in late winter and acoustic sets or Native American flute in resort bars. There is no concert hall.

Here Sedona is far ahead. It is one of America's best-known retreat towns, with spa resorts set against the canyons, yoga, meditation, breathwork and alternative therapies all around, and sunrise walks to the vortexes. Neither town has hot springs, and Sedona's treatments come at resort prices.

Fort Collins has the ordinary day spas and yoga studios of a university town. Its calm comes from shaded river paths and quiet streets, and the nearest mineral soak is at Idaho Springs, close to two hours away.