Glacier National Park or Redwood National Park?

Neither is a swimming destination, but Glacier gives a little more in high summer. You can paddle off the coloured pebbles at Apgar on Lake McDonald, and Flathead Lake, just outside the park, warms enough for proper swimming from its state park beaches in August.

Redwood's coast at Gold Bluffs and Enderts Beach is for walking, not swimming. The Pacific stays cold all year and sneaker waves make the shore dangerous. Its one real swim is in the clear pools of the Smith River in July and August.

Neither place is a reason to travel for food, and in both the better meals are outside the park. What differs is the flavour. At Glacier it is huckleberry everything, bison burgers and trout in the lodge dining rooms, with Whitefish's restaurants and breweries for a better dinner and cherry stands along Flathead Lake.

At Redwood the food is coastal. Humboldt Bay oysters and Dungeness crab are served in Arcata and Eureka, and Trinidad's harbour is the place for fresh fish. Around the groves themselves, most people bring a picnic.

Both have modest heritage, and in both it comes second to the landscape, though of different kinds. Glacier's is mostly 20th-century engineering and architecture: the cliff-cut Going-to-the-Sun Road and the great log-lobbied railway lodges. On the east side, the Museum of the Plains Indian in Browning holds a fine Blackfeet and Northern Plains collection.

Redwood looks further back to the Yurok and Tolowa, whose plank-house village has been rebuilt at Sue-meg State Park. Eureka adds Victorian streets and the ornate Carson Mansion. That is enough for half a day, not a reason to come.

Evenings are quiet at both, ending at a campfire or under the stars. If you do want a drink out, Glacier has Whitefish's saloons and brewery taprooms, which fill up on summer weekends. Redwood's equivalent is an hour's drive away in Arcata, where university students keep the brewpubs around the plaza busy.

Both are top-class wild landscapes, but they feel very different. Glacier is mountain country: peaks along the Continental Divide, hundreds of lakes and hanging valleys, high routes such as the Highline Trail, and grizzlies, moose and bighorn sheep. Its high trails are only open from about July to September.

Redwood is coastal forest, where the scale comes from trees past 100m tall rather than from summits. You walk through fog-filtered groves such as Stout Grove and Tall Trees, along the fern walls of Fern Canyon and on the Coastal Trail above the sea stacks. You can go most of the year, with Roosevelt elk on land and grey whales passing offshore.

Redwood has slightly more to fill a day away from the trees. Trinidad's fishing harbour, Arcata's plaza, Eureka's Old Town and the painted Victorian village of Ferndale are all within easy reach along the coast.

From Glacier the best outing crosses into Canada to Waterton and its lakeside railway hotel. Bigfork and the Flathead Lake orchards are closer to hand, but beyond those the Montana distances quickly become too long for a day.

The age of your children decides this one. Glacier is better with school-age children, who will get the most out of the historic boat tours on Many Glacier and Two Medicine lakes, mountain goats on the trails and the Junior Ranger programme. It also asks more of them: long drives on narrow mountain roads, full car parks and bear spray carried every day.

Redwood copes better with small children. Besides the grove loops, there is a roadside gondola up into the forest near Klamath and a canopy walkway at Eureka's small zoo. You still have to keep children well back from the waves on its beaches, and there is little to do indoors on a wet day.

You need a car at both, but Redwood is the easier drive. The groves line up along about 70km of US-101 and the Newton B. Drury Parkway, traffic is light and the main sights are close together. Only the gravel roads to Stout Grove and Fern Canyon slow you down.

Glacier is harder work. The cliff-edge Sun Road is open only in summer, Many Glacier and Two Medicine are long drives round from outside the park, and trailhead car parks fill early. To make up for it, Glacier has things Redwood lacks: a train stop at each entrance, a free summer shuttle and the red open-top tour buses.

Shopping is a sideline at both, and what is worth taking home is the local craft. At Glacier that is Blackfeet beadwork around Browning, plus Western wear on Whitefish's main street. At Redwood it is redwood burl carvings from the roadside stalls and Native basketry and jewellery in Arcata and Eureka.

Redwood is clearly the cheaper trip. Park entry is free, the state campgrounds cost little and motels along the highway undercut lodging near the big-name parks. Because the sights are close together, you also spend less on fuel.

Glacier's short season pushes prices up. The historic lodges and Whitefish rooms book out far ahead, and meals carry resort mark-ups. You can cut costs by camping or staying in motels in Kalispell and Columbia Falls and driving in.

There is little at either, and what there is runs on a different calendar. Glacier's best evening out is in summer at the long-running playhouse in Bigfork, which stages Broadway musicals. Redwood's comes in term time, when Arcata's university hosts touring acts and student productions.

Neither park has hot springs or a proper spa, so in both the rest comes from quiet. At Glacier, though, you earn it. Days start early, the climbs are steep and you keep an eye out for bears, so the calm arrives in the evening, at a remote lodge where there is little to do but sit still. A few resort hotels around Whitefish offer treatments, and that is the extent of the pampering.

Redwood is easier to slow down in because the walking itself is restful. The trails are flat and soft underfoot, the shade and fog muffle sound, and the groves are close enough together that you spend little time behind the wheel. If you want to sit in hot water, you can rent private hot tubs and saunas by the hour in Arcata, and some lodges offer massage.