Keystone or Phoenix?

Neither place offers a beach vacation, and they are about equal here. Keystone's Dillon Reservoir is snowmelt-cold and mostly closed to swimming, so getting into the water means a lodge hot tub or a hotel pool.

Phoenix gives you a little more to do in the water. You can tube down the lower Salt River in summer or spend a day at the small beaches of Saguaro Lake and Canyon Lake, surrounded by desert cliffs. Most of the time, though, swimming means a resort pool with a lazy river.

Phoenix has much better food, and food it can call its own. Sonoran borderland cooking gives you carne asada, paper-thin flour tortillas and bacon-wrapped hot dogs from evening carts. Central Phoenix and Roosevelt Row have the more interesting independent places, and Scottsdale does polished steakhouses. You will usually need to drive between them.

Keystone serves resort food: slopeside grills, après-ski burgers and pizza, and a few ambitious dining rooms. Elk, trout and Colorado craft beer give the menus some local character. Many visitors cook in their condo or head to Frisco or Breckenridge for more choice.

There is a wide gap here. Keystone was built for skiing in the 1970s, and its history is the old mining cabins and ruins up the Snake River valley and the Victorian towns nearby. River Run Village is handy, not something to sightsee.

Phoenix has no old centre either, but its museums are a reason to visit. The Heard Museum's Native American collections and the Musical Instrument Museum are the highlights, and Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West is a major piece of architecture. The Hohokam canals at Pueblo Grande add a much older layer, though each sight means a separate drive.

Nights in Keystone start with après-ski on the River Run decks and are usually over soon after dinner, since most guests want to be up for first chair. Anyone wanting more takes the bus to Breckenridge's Main Street.

Phoenix gives you real choices. Old Town Scottsdale has clubs and rooftop bars that fill up at weekends, Mill Avenue in Tempe is cheap and full of students, and downtown has cocktail lounges and a more local crowd. In summer the drinking moves to patios with misters and resort pool parties.

Both have impressive landscapes, but Keystone is the bigger draw. In winter there is skiing above 3,600m on its own peaks and at Arapahoe Basin. In summer you can climb Grays and Torreys Peaks, two of Colorado's 14,000ft summits, cross the tundra on Loveland Pass and paddle Dillon Reservoir. The altitude takes a day or two to get used to.

Phoenix's appeal is desert mountains rising right out of the suburbs: Camelback scrambles, South Mountain's huge park, and the saguaro forest of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, with Sedona's red rock about two hours north. It is excellent in winter, but summer heat cuts hiking short.

Both offer a similar amount, with different themes. From Keystone the trips are about mining history: Breckenridge's Victorian centre, the loop railway between Georgetown and Silver Plume, Leadville's opera house, and Vail's Tyrolean-style village. Denver is the city option, if I-70 traffic allows.

From Phoenix the distances are longer and the trips are about desert history. You can visit the hillside town of Jerome, the cliff dwelling at Montezuma Castle, Sedona's red rock, and Tucson with its adobe barrios and Mission San Xavier del Bac. All of them need a car.

Keystone is slightly easier with children, at least in ski season. There is a large ski school, gentle runs on the lower slopes, a snow fort on the mountain and a huge skating rink on the frozen lake at Lakeside Village, all within walking distance or a free shuttle ride. Away from the snow there is less to do, and the altitude can affect young children at first.

Phoenix has more attractions overall: a zoo, an aquarium, a science centre, water parks and spring training baseball in March. They are spread across the metro area, though, so expect long drives, and summer heat limits outdoor play.

Once you have arrived, Keystone is easier to manage without a car. Free shuttles connect River Run, Mountain House and Lakeside, and free county buses go to Frisco, Dillon and Breckenridge. The hard part is getting there: there is no train, so it is a shuttle or a drive over I-70 from Denver, with snow and chain rules in winter.

Phoenix is built for driving. Its one light rail line is useful only between the airport, downtown and Tempe. The places you are likely to want, Scottsdale, the trailheads and the resorts, are far apart, so most visitors rent a car.

Phoenix is the better place to shop, mainly for one thing you can only really buy in this region. Navajo and Zuni silver and turquoise, Hopi katsina carvings and pottery are best bought from museum shops and reputable galleries. Scottsdale's malls and Old Town galleries cover international brands and Western wear.

Shopping in Keystone mostly means ski gear and rental shops in River Run. The main reason to go shopping is the large outlet centre in Silverthorne, ten minutes away, for outdoor clothing and brand names.

Phoenix is the cheaper of the two, though not cheap. Rooms are expensive in the winter high season but drop sharply in summer, chain hotels along the freeways are good value, Sonoran Mexican food costs little and hiking is mostly free. The extra cost is the rental car.

Keystone is never a budget destination. Lift access, slopeside lodging, ski school and resort meals all add up, especially over Christmas and spring break. Free buses and condo kitchens help, and summer is gentler.

Phoenix has the full set of big-city arts companies: the Phoenix Symphony, Arizona Opera, Ballet Arizona and touring Broadway shows in Wright's round ASU Gammage auditorium. It also has an intimate concert hall at the Musical Instrument Museum. The season runs mainly from autumn to spring.

Keystone's offering is mostly in summer, when it puts on open-air concerts by Dillon Reservoir and Breckenridge holds its classical festival at the Riverwalk Center. In winter, Silverthorne's professional theatre company is the main thing to see.

Neither has historic baths, but Phoenix is the better place for a restful stay. Its large desert resorts below Camelback Mountain and in north Scottsdale combine full spas, several pools and treatments based on clay, sage and agave, and winter's dry warmth makes a week by the pool easy.

In Keystone, wellness is about recovering from a day on the slopes. That means a massage at a resort spa and a steaming outdoor hot tub while the snow falls. For natural hot springs you have to drive over the pass to Idaho Springs.