Grand Canyon or Kings Canyon?

Neither place works for a swimming vacation. What differs is what is nearby. From the Grand Canyon, Lake Powell at Page warms up in summer and has sandy coves, but it is a drive of several hours from the South Rim, and the Colorado at the canyon floor stays bracingly cold. Kings Canyon gives you chilly late-summer river pools such as Muir Rock and the small sandy shore at Hume Lake, closer to hand but with a river that is dangerous earlier in the season.

The Grand Canyon eats better, mostly because Flagstaff is within reach. Its old downtown has craft breweries, diners and a few serious kitchens serving Southwestern dishes such as green chile and Navajo frybread. On the rim itself, the historic El Tovar dining room gives at least one meal some atmosphere.

At Kings Canyon you get lodge grills, burgers and small markets, and many visitors simply cook at their campsite. The varied Mexican, Hmong and Armenian cooking of Fresno is more than an hour down a winding road, so it is no use for dinner.

The Grand Canyon has far more to see beyond the scenery. On the South Rim are the railway-era buildings of Grand Canyon Village, Hopi House and the Desert View Watchtower with its Hopi murals. Flagstaff adds the Museum of Northern Arizona and the observatory where Pluto was found.

Kings Canyon's human story fits into a short walk: the General Grant Tree as a national shrine, a couple of old cabins and the logging-era stumps of Big Stump. The visitor centre explains the history, and the rest is landscape.

Neither is a place for a night out, but the Grand Canyon at least has the option. Flagstaff's brewpubs, dive bars and student venues make a pleasant evening, though they are too far from the rim if you plan to watch the sunrise. Kings Canyon goes silent soon after dark, and a drink with dinner and a campfire under the stars are all there is.

Both are first-rank wild country, but of different kinds. The Grand Canyon is a mile-deep desert gorge of layered rock that changes colour through the day. You walk the rim or drop steeply towards the Colorado on Bright Angel and South Kaibab, and you can raft the rapids or watch condors overhead.

Kings Canyon is granite and forest. Its giant sequoias at Grant Grove lead down to a glacier-carved valley with meadow walks and waterfalls, and beyond the road's end the Rae Lakes Loop and the John Muir Trail climb into the alpine High Sierra. Choose desert scale or mountain wilderness.

With Flagstaff as a base, the Grand Canyon gives you several days of quite different outings. Sedona's red rock is one direction and the Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings at Walnut Canyon are another, a short drive away. A longer run east through Navajo country brings you to the slot canyons near Page. The roads are long, and most of what you reach is landscape rather than towns, but each outing shows you something the rim does not.

Kings Canyon gives you little reason to leave. The one real oddity is down in Fresno: the Forestiere Underground Gardens, a warren of rooms and fruit trees that one farmer dug by hand. Three Rivers fills a quiet afternoon with its galleries. Otherwise the valley holds plain farm cities, so your days are better spent on the trails you came for.

The Grand Canyon does more for children. Junior Ranger badges, ranger talks, the vintage train into the village and the wildlife park at Williams give a family plenty to do. The cautions are the unfenced rim, the altitude and the heat on the descent trails.

Kings Canyon suits families who already camp. The Grant Tree loop, the Zumwalt Meadow boardwalk and the short path to Roaring River Falls suit small legs, but there is nothing else for children, the twisting drive is hard on anyone who gets carsick, and the fast river needs constant watching.

The Grand Canyon is easier to get around. It takes a car or the train from Williams to reach it, but once there the free shuttles on the village loop and Hermit Road let you park and hop between viewpoints, or you can walk between them on the Rim Trail.

Kings Canyon has no public transport at all. It is a long drive from Fresno and then an hour of switchbacks to Cedar Grove, the Generals Highway to Sequoia is just as slow, and the canyon road closes for the winter.

The Grand Canyon has one real reason to shop: Native American craft. You can buy Navajo rugs and silver, Hopi kachina carvings and pottery at Hopi House and the old trading post at Cameron, from staff who know the makers. Kings Canyon has a visitor-centre bookshop, sequoia souvenirs and firewood, so bring anything you need from the valley.

Kings Canyon is the cheaper trip if you camp. One vehicle pass also covers Sequoia, campsites cost little, and food bought in the valley saves on the expensive lodge meals and mountain-priced markets.

The Grand Canyon can be done cheaply too, since walking the rim, the shuttles and the ranger programmes come with the entrance fee, and motels in Williams and Flagstaff undercut the rim lodges. But summer rates at the rim and in Tusayan are high, and mule rides, helicopter flights and rafting trips are among the costliest outings in the West.

Live performance is rare at both, but the Grand Canyon has some. There is a long-running chamber music festival on the South Rim in late summer and Native American dance at Desert View in the warm months, while Flagstaff has a small symphony orchestra and a historic downtown theatre. At Kings Canyon, a ranger talk at a campground amphitheatre is the only programme.

The Grand Canyon has a slight edge, mostly because Sedona is two or so hours away and has built a whole town around treatments, retreats and yoga. The canyon itself offers dawn at a quiet viewpoint and the slower days of the North Rim.

Kings Canyon is for switching off rather than being pampered. It has cool, still mornings among the sequoias, almost no phone signal, and evenings at Cedar Grove with only the sound of the river. There is no spa or soak anywhere nearby.