Huntington Beach or Taos?

This is the starkest contrast on the page. Huntington Beach is built along about 14km of wide sand, with surf breaks, volleyball nets, fire rings and a beachfront path. The water is cool for much of the year and the waves call for swimming near the lifeguards, but the beach is the town's whole reason for being.

Taos sits on a high plateau hundreds of kilometres from any sea. Its Rio Grande is for rafting rather than swimming, so in summer a hotel pool or a hot spring is the closest you will get.

Huntington Beach has the wider choice. In town it is fish tacos, surfers' breakfasts and seafood with an ocean view. The real prize is Little Saigon just inland, with its pho houses and banh mi bakeries, and Newport is close for a smarter dinner.

Taos is narrower but more distinctive. Northern New Mexican cooking with red or green chile is the point, and Pueblo horno bread and blue-corn dishes add more local character. Beyond that regional kitchen there isn't much variety, and a week covers most of it.

Taos is in another league here. Taos Pueblo is a UNESCO-listed adobe village still home to a Tiwa-speaking community. Add the buttressed church at Ranchos de Taos and the house museums of the art colony, and you have two or three unhurried days of real substance.

Huntington Beach is postwar suburb and oil-field history. Its sights are the pier, the International Surfing Museum and the handprints of the Surfers' Hall of Fame. Anyone wanting museums drives to Los Angeles.

Huntington Beach is the place for a night out, though only modestly so. Main Street's sports bars, rooftop beach bars and a few dance spots fill with a young local crowd on Friday and Saturday, and summer weekends get loud.

Taos has no clubs. An evening there is a margarita in an old adobe hotel bar, a brewery taproom or a saloon band, and most nights end soon after dinner.

Taos has far more to offer in nature, and for many visitors it is the main reason to go. The Sangre de Cristo mountains rise over a sagebrush plateau cut by the Rio Grande gorge. The ski valley's steep terrain becomes the starting point for trails to Wheeler Peak and Williams Lake in summer, and the Taos Box gives spring whitewater.

Huntington Beach's outdoor life is the ocean: consistent surf, paddling in the harbour channels and excellent birding at the Bolsa Chica wetland. For hills you drive half an hour to Crystal Cove or Laguna, because the land around town is flat suburb.

Both are good bases for driving out, but the outings are of very different kinds. From Huntington Beach they are big and urban: Los Angeles about an hour away, the art town of Laguna, Mission San Juan Capistrano, the ferry to Catalina, and San Diego on a long day.

From Taos they are quieter and steeped in history. The High Road to Santa Fe winds through old Hispanic villages and the sanctuary at Chimayó, and O'Keeffe country around Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch lies to the west. Bandelier's cliff dwellings make a longer day.

Huntington Beach is by far the easier family base. Disneyland, California Adventure and Knott's Berry Farm are all within about half an hour. At home there is soft sand, the lakes and playgrounds of Central Park, and tide pools down the coast at Crystal Cove. The surf is better for boogie boarding than for toddlers.

Taos suits outdoorsy families: ski school in winter, gentle river floats and horse riding in summer. But there is no zoo, aquarium or theme park, and the altitude can tire small children for the first day or two.

Plan on a car in either place. Huntington Beach's pier and Main Street are walkable, and a rented bike on the flat beach path is the nicest way along the coast. Every bigger outing means busy freeways and, on summer weekends, a hunt for parking.

In Taos the problem is distance rather than traffic. The plaza is walkable, but the Pueblo, the gorge, the ski valley and the villages are spread across a wide valley. Most visitors also arrive by a drive of about two and a half hours from Albuquerque.

The two are about level, but you would shop for very different things. Huntington Beach means surf shops, board makers and swimwear around the pier. South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa is about twenty minutes away for luxury fashion.

Taos is for collectors: gallery lanes around the plaza and Kit Carson Road, turquoise and silver jewellery, micaceous pottery and Rio Grande weaving, some of it bought directly from makers at the Pueblo. There are no fashion streets at all.

Taos is the somewhat gentler choice for a budget, though neither is cheap. Its simple motels and New Mexican diners are fairly priced, and spring and late autumn, between the ski and summer seasons, keep costs down. Historic inns and ski-valley lodging still charge resort rates.

Huntington Beach's beachfront hotels are expensive, especially on summer weekends, and you will need to budget for parking along with the car. Savings come from inland motels and the Vietnamese and Mexican cooking of the surrounding county.

Huntington Beach has the edge, but only because of its neighbours. The town itself offers cover bands and summer park concerts. Twenty minutes away in Costa Mesa, the Segerstrom Center has the Pacific Symphony, ballet, opera and touring Broadway, and South Coast Repertory runs a respected theatre season.

Taos has fewer evenings to book but rarer moments. On feast days such as San Gerónimo, Taos Pueblo holds traditional dances that visitors may watch quietly, and there is a summer chamber music festival.

Taos is the better place to unwind properly. Ojo Caliente's historic mineral pools, taken outdoors under cliffs, are under an hour away. Primitive hot springs sit at the bottom of the Rio Grande gorge, and the town has yoga studios and retreat centres drawing on its spiritual reputation.

In Huntington Beach, relaxing means resort-hotel spas, yoga on the sand and an evening around a beach fire. It is pleasant, but it is doing little rather than a real retreat.