Keystone or Salt Lake City?

Neither is a swimming destination, but Salt Lake City at least gives you water you can get into. Floating in the Great Salt Lake off Antelope Island is a one-off curiosity, and for a proper swim on a hot day there are the Wasatch reservoirs such as Jordanelle and Pineview, with their sandy patches of shore.

At Keystone, Dillon Reservoir is for sailing and the view. Snowmelt keeps it too cold to swim in, so the only water you will sit in is a hotel pool or hot tub.

Salt Lake City has more to eat. Its best meals come from the Mexican, Pacific Islander, Peruvian and Vietnamese kitchens along State Street. Local oddities like fry sauce, fried scones with honey butter and dirty sodas add some fun, and there are breweries downtown and in Sugar House.

Keystone means resort dining: slopeside grills, burgers at après-ski, Colorado elk and trout, and a summit dining room reached by gondola. That is fine after a day of skiing, but for variety most visitors drive to Frisco or Breckenridge or cook in the condo.

The gap here is wide. Salt Lake City has a real sightseeing core in Temple Square, with the granite temple, the domed Tabernacle and Brigham Young's Beehive House. Beyond it are the State Capitol, the painted interior of the Cathedral of the Madeleine and the dinosaur halls at the Natural History Museum.

Keystone was built for skiing in the 1970s, and River Run is a modern village made for convenience. Its history lies outside the resort, in the mining ruins above Montezuma and the Victorian streets of nearby towns.

Neither city stays up late, but Salt Lake City offers more choice. There are bars and a few dance clubs downtown and in the Granary District, a long-standing gay bar scene and neighbourhood pubs in Sugar House, all shaped by Utah's liquor rules.

In Keystone, evenings mean après-ski on the River Run decks, then dinner and an early night before first chair. For a real night out you take the bus to Breckenridge's Main Street.

Both are first-rate mountain bases, and the difference is where you sleep. In Keystone you are already high up, with three peaks of your own and bowls above 3,600m. Arapahoe Basin is minutes away, and Breckenridge, Copper Mountain and Vail are within an hour. In summer there are 14,000ft summits nearby, alpine tundra on Loveland Pass and sailing on Dillon Reservoir.

Salt Lake City has the Wasatch rising at the edge of town. Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude are up the Cottonwood Canyons, and foothill trails start from the Avenues. Sleeping lower down also makes the thin air easier to cope with. The city adds landscapes Keystone lacks: the bison grasslands of Antelope Island and the white expanse of the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Keystone has the better choice of days out. Breckenridge's Victorian centre is half an hour away, and over the Continental Divide are Georgetown and Silver Plume with their historic loop railway. Leadville's mining-boom streets and Vail's Tyrolean village round out the list, and Denver is within reach when I-70 traffic allows.

From Salt Lake City, the obvious trip is Park City's restored Main Street, followed by Midway, Ogden's 25th Street and the Golden Spike site. Utah's famous national parks are too far for a day.

Both handle children well, in different ways. Keystone is a self-contained family ski resort, with a big ski school, gentle lower slopes, tubing, the snow fort and the huge skating rink on the lake at Lakeside. Condos are a short walk from the lifts. Away from the snow there is little else for children, and the altitude can tire young ones at first.

Salt Lake City has a little more for children through the year. There is Hogle Zoo, the aquarium, the Discovery Gateway children's museum, the planetarium and the roller coasters at Lagoon, plus good ski schools in winter. You will need a car to get between them.

Once you have arrived, Keystone is the easier place to get around. Free shuttles link River Run, Mountain House and Lakeside, and free county buses go to Breckenridge, Frisco and Dillon, so a car is optional. The catch is the drive up from Denver on I-70, which in winter brings snow and slow traffic.

Salt Lake City has TRAX light rail from the airport and FrontRunner trains north to Ogden and south to Provo. But the long blocks make walks feel longer than they are, and the zoo, the canyons and the outlying towns are far easier to reach by car.

Keystone's shops mostly sell ski gear and rent out equipment in River Run Village. The one real shopping outing is the large outlet centre in Silverthorne, ten minutes away, for brand-name clothes and outdoor wear.

In Salt Lake City you can browse much more: the open-air City Creek Center with a creek running through it, the old streetcar barns at Trolley Square, and independent and vintage shops around 9th and 9th and in Sugar House. Its speciality is the locally owned climbing, ski and camping shops.

Salt Lake City is clearly the cheaper trip. Downtown hotels are reasonable, everything on Temple Square is free and light rail is inexpensive. Ski days in the canyons or at Park City are still expensive.

At Keystone, nearly everything comes at resort prices, from lodging to lessons and meals, and the Christmas and spring-break weeks cost the most. A summer visit, the free buses and cooking in your condo all help, but it is never a budget choice.

Salt Lake City has a proper arts calendar. The Tabernacle Choir and the great organ are open to the public, and there are daily organ recitals. The Utah Symphony plays at Abravanel Hall, and Utah Opera, Ballet West and touring Broadway shows at the Eccles Theater fill out the year.

Keystone's offer is mostly in summer: festival stages in the village, concerts at Dillon's amphitheatre by the reservoir and Breckenridge's classical music festival. In winter, Silverthorne's professional theatre company and acoustic sets at après-ski are about all there is.

Neither place has a bathing culture of its own, so relaxing means a spa or a soak after a day outdoors. Keystone does the hot tub well, with outdoor tubs at almost every lodge and condo complex, but its nearest natural hot springs are over the pass in Idaho Springs.

Salt Lake City has a little more to offer. The Homestead Crater in Midway, about an hour away, lets you soak in warm mineral water inside a limestone dome. There are also resort spas in Park City, and the city itself moves at an unhurried pace.