Kings Canyon or Yosemite?

Neither park is a swimming destination, but Yosemite has a little more. In late summer the Merced forms calm pools in the Valley, Tenaya Lake up on Tioga Road has a sandy shore, and Bass Lake, just outside the south entrance, is warmer and feels like a summer lake resort.

Kings Canyon has the cold pool at Muir Rock in Cedar Grove and the small sandy shore at Hume Lake. In both parks the rivers are dangerous during the spring snowmelt, so save a dip for late summer after a hike.

Both parks rely on lodge grills, small markets and campsite cooking, but Yosemite gives you more choice. It has a grand historic dining room in the Valley, and the gateway towns of Mariposa, Groveland and Oakhurst have diners, barbecue, Mexican cooking and Sierra foothill wine.

Kings Canyon has only the grills at Grant Grove and Cedar Grove and a snack bar at Hume Lake. Fresno's Mexican, Hmong and Armenian cooking is more than an hour away down a winding road, so stock up before you drive in.

Kings Canyon's human history comes down to one famous tree and a few relics of logging. The General Grant Tree is the Nation's Christmas Tree and a shrine to war dead, and there are Gamlin and Knapp's cabins and the stumps at Big Stump. An hour or so covers them all.

Yosemite has more to stop for. There is the early twentieth-century timber and stone hotel in the Valley with its Native American motifs, the Yosemite Museum's Ahwahneechee Miwok basketry, Ansel Adams's photographs and the Pioneer History Center at Wawona. Together they fill a few unhurried hours away from the trails.

Both parks go quiet soon after dark, and the night sky is the main thing to see in each. The only difference is that Yosemite has lodge lounges and a saloon or brewpub in each gateway town. Kings Canyon offers a drink with dinner and then a campfire among the trees.

Both are top-class mountain country, and the difference is one of character. Yosemite has the more famous sights: Valley walls rising about 1,000m to El Capitan and Half Dome, waterfalls at full force in spring, big-wall climbing, classic day hikes such as the Mist Trail, and the Tuolumne high country along Tioga Road.

In Kings Canyon the giant sequoias are the main attraction, not a side trip. Grant Grove and the Giant Forest in neighbouring Sequoia are both in reach, along with a deep glacier-carved canyon with gentle walks round Zumwalt Meadow, and the Rae Lakes Loop and John Muir Trail beyond the end of the road. It feels wilder and emptier, while Yosemite's Valley is busier and more dramatic.

Yosemite has far more to see outside the park. To the west are Columbia's gold-rush main street, the steam railway yard at Jamestown and the wineries around Murphys. In summer, Tioga Pass opens the way to the ghost town of Bodie and to Mammoth Lakes.

From Kings Canyon the list is short: the hand-dug Forestiere Underground Gardens in Fresno and an afternoon in Three Rivers. Most visitors spend every day in the mountains.

Yosemite works better for children, mostly because the flat Valley floor puts cycle paths, meadows, the short walk to Lower Yosemite Fall and shallow late-summer river edges close together, with shuttles in between. Kings Canyon has good short walks too, such as the paved loop round the General Grant Tree and the Zumwalt Meadow boardwalk, and quieter campfire evenings at Grant Grove.

Neither park has anything built for children. In both, the drives are long and twisting and the rivers are a real danger in spring. The price of Yosemite's easier days is its summer crowds and full car parks.

Yosemite is the easier of the two without a car. A regional bus runs from the train station at Merced and from the gateway towns, and free shuttles and bike paths cover the Valley floor. Glacier Point, Mariposa Grove and Tuolumne still need a car.

Kings Canyon has no public transport at all. Grant Grove is about an hour and a half by car from Fresno airport, Cedar Grove is another hour of switchbacks beyond it, and the canyon road closes in winter.

There is nothing to shop for in either park beyond souvenirs and supplies. Yosemite has a little more, with a long-standing gallery of landscape prints in the Valley and antique and craft shops in the gateway towns. Kings Canyon has only its bookshop, lodge gift counters and camp markets.

Kings Canyon is the cheaper trip. Camping costs little, one vehicle pass also covers Sequoia National Park, and motels in Fresno or Visalia are a cheaper fallback, though they add a long drive each way. Only the lodges and park markets feel overpriced.

In Yosemite, rooms inside the park sell out early at high prices, and the gateway towns charge peak rates all summer. Its cheap campsites are hard to get. Going in winter or staying lower in the foothills is the way to keep the cost down.

Neither park has performances worth planning a trip around, and summer evenings in both mean ranger talks at campground amphitheatres. Yosemite adds the occasional one-person historical show in the Valley, a small repertory theatre in Sonora and summer concerts in the foothill towns.

Both are restful in the way wild places are, not in the way of spas. Kings Canyon is the quieter of the two, with little phone signal and evenings beside the river at Cedar Grove, but there are no treatments or soaks within reach.

Yosemite is busier in summer, especially the Valley in July. It does have spa treatments at resort hotels near the southern entrance, and open-air hot springs around Bridgeport and Mammoth Lakes beyond Tioga Pass.