Huntington Beach or Park City?

This is the widest gap between the two. Huntington Beach has around 14km of flat sand with volleyball nets, fire rings and surf watched over by lifeguards. For calmer water, the coves of Newport and Laguna are nearby, though the Pacific stays cool for much of the year.

Park City is a mountain town far from any coast. The nearest swimming is at Jordanelle Reservoir in high summer, and for most visitors getting in the water means a hotel pool or a hot tub.

Neither town is a destination for serious eaters, but Huntington Beach offers more variety. In town it means fish tacos, surfer breakfasts and brewpubs with sea views. The real reward is Little Saigon a short drive inland, home to one of the largest Vietnamese communities outside Vietnam, where you can eat pho and banh mi.

Park City is more polished but has less range: elk, bison and trout on Main Street and at the resort bases, and après-ski drinks on slopeside decks. There is no regional cooking to seek out, so for more variety you go down to Salt Lake City.

Neither town has much to see, and both send visitors elsewhere for museums. What there is differs in kind. Huntington Beach tells the story of surfing, with its pier, the International Surfing Museum and the Surfers' Hall of Fame handprints, set among postwar suburbs.

Park City has more of a historic townscape. The wooden storefronts climb Main Street, old mine headframes stand on the slopes, the Park City Museum in the old city hall tells the mining story, and the Olympic Park has its own museums. Either town can be covered in an afternoon.

In both towns a night out comes down to one street, but Huntington Beach's Main Street has more going on. There are sports bars, beach bars with rooftop decks and a few places to dance, and on summer weekends they fill with young, loud local crowds.

Park City's saloons and cocktail bars fill up after the lifts close on winter weekends, but the town winds down early and is very quiet out of season. In both places, a bigger night out means driving to a city.

Park City is by far the stronger of the two for the outdoors. Two large ski areas rise from the town at about 2,100m, and the steep terrain of Alta and Snowbird is within an hour. Summer brings hundreds of kilometres of singletrack, lifts that carry bikes uphill and fly fishing on the Provo and Weber rivers.

In Huntington Beach the outdoors means the ocean: consistent surf by the pier, paddling in the harbour channels and the birdlife of the Bolsa Chica wetland. For real hills you have to drive to Crystal Cove or the Santa Ana Mountains.

Huntington Beach is the better base for day trips, as long as you have a car. Laguna Beach, an arts town on a dramatic coast, is half an hour south with Mission San Juan Capistrano just beyond, and Los Angeles is about an hour away. Ferries from Long Beach and Newport reach Catalina Island in about an hour, and San Diego makes a longer day out.

From Park City the main outing is Salt Lake City, about 40 minutes down the canyon, with Temple Square and the domed State Capitol. Closer in are the Heber Valley steam railway and the Swiss-style chalets of Midway, and Ogden's railroad-era street and grand old station are about an hour north. Past those, most of what you can reach is scenery rather than towns to explore.

Huntington Beach is the stronger family base, mainly because of what lies close by. Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are about half an hour away and the Long Beach aquarium makes an easy morning, while the sand and the pelicans at Bolsa Chica fill the days in between. The waves suit boogie boarding more than toddlers, and every outing needs a car.

Park City's family appeal centres on ski schools and gentle learning slopes. It adds the alpine coaster and ziplines at the Olympic Park, and mountain coasters at the resort bases in summer. There is no zoo or theme park in town, and the altitude can tire small children at first.

Park City is the easier town to manage without a car. Free buses link Old Town, both ski bases, the outlying lodging areas and Kimball Junction. Parking at the resorts is awkward enough that leaving the car behind makes sense, though trips beyond town still need one.

In Huntington Beach, only the area around the pier and Main Street is walkable, and a bike on the beach path is the pleasant way to travel along the coast. Buses are slow, there is no rail, and almost everything else means driving on busy freeways.

Huntington Beach has the edge, mostly thanks to a neighbour. South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, about twenty minutes away, has the major fashion houses under one roof. In town it is surf shops, board makers and swimwear, and a locally made surfboard is the obvious thing to take home.

Park City's Main Street is pleasant for resort browsing, with galleries, Western wear, cowboy boots and ski fashion, plus outlets at Kimball Junction. Neither town has a market worth seeking out.

Both are costly, but Park City more so. In ski season, lift tickets, ski school and slopeside lodging add up fast, and the weeks around Christmas and New Year are steeper still. Summer and autumn there are much easier on the budget.

Huntington Beach is expensive too, with high beachfront hotel rates and a rental car you can hardly do without. Still, the beach is free, the motels inland are cheaper, and the nearby Vietnamese and Mexican places serve good food at modest cost.

Huntington Beach gets its serious stage life from Costa Mesa, a short drive away. There the Segerstrom Center hosts the Pacific Symphony, ballet, opera and touring Broadway shows, and South Coast Repertory runs a respected theatre season. In town itself there is little beyond cover bands on Main Street and summer concerts in the park.\n\nPark City has a smaller programme, but it is in town: the 1920s Egyptian Theatre on Main Street has comedy, plays and cabaret, and the Eccles Center hosts touring shows. Summer is the best time, when the Utah Symphony plays on the lawns at Deer Valley. For opera or ballet you go down to Salt Lake City.

Park City is the more restful choice. The grand lodges at Deer Valley and the Canyons base run large spas, outdoor hot tubs in the snow are part of nearly every stay, and in Midway you can swim in the Homestead Crater, a geothermal spring at about 35°C inside a limestone dome.

Huntington Beach has resort spas and day spas, but relaxing there is more about the slow pace: yoga on the sand, sunset on the pier and an evening by a beach fire.