Laguna Beach or Moab?

Laguna Beach is built around its shoreline. Main Beach sits in the village, Shaw's Cove and the coves below Heisler Park lie to the north, and Victoria Beach, Thousand Steps and Aliso lie to the south, all with clear water that is good for snorkelling. The sea stays cool for much of the year and some coves have rip currents, but the lifeguarded beaches make it a proper seaside stay.

Moab has nothing comparable. It lies in high desert far from any coast, and its swimming spots at Mill Creek's pools, Ken's Lake and the Colorado's sandbars are for cooling off, not for a beach day. The river is fast and silty and needs care.

Neither town is a food destination, but Laguna gives you more choice: fish tacos and poke, clifftop dining rooms, and a few serious kitchens built on local seafood and California wine. Orange County's Vietnamese, Mexican and Korean restaurants are a drive inland. Much of what you eat in town is priced for the view.

Moab eats to refuel. Main Street has burgers, tacos, pizza and brewery food, plus a few more ambitious dinner places with Southwestern touches. Utah's alcohol rules make a glass of wine with dinner more formal than many visitors expect, and choice thins in winter.

Laguna has the clearer cultural thread. Its past as a plein air art colony is still visible in the Laguna Art Museum and in the galleries along Coast Highway and Forest Avenue, and Mission San Juan Capistrano is a short drive inland. Even so, a morning covers most of it.

Moab's town offers little beyond the small Museum of Moab and a few buildings from the uranium boom. Its real heritage is in the rock: Ancestral Puebloan and Fremont petroglyphs along Potash Road and Kane Creek, and dinosaur trackways. These are outdoor outings rather than sightseeing.

Both towns go quiet early. Laguna has a little more to fill an evening, with old beach bars, wine bars and hotel lounges on ocean terraces, and Newport Beach or Costa Mesa are a drive away if you want a proper night out. Moab's brewpubs fill with bikers and rafters swapping stories, but the town is asleep by eleven, and the best thing to do after dark is look at the star-filled sky.

Laguna's outdoors are good by any coastal standard. There are chaparral ridges in Laguna Coast Wilderness Park and Aliso and Wood Canyons, tide pools and kelp reefs in a marine protected area, and grey whales passing Dana Point in winter. You can fit a hike and a snorkel into one day.

Moab is in another league. Arches begins minutes from town, Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point look over the canyons of the Colorado and Green rivers, and the Slickrock Trail, the Whole Enchilada, rafting and canyoneering draw people from around the world. The catch is summer heat above 38°C, so timing matters.

Laguna sits in the middle of Southern California. Mission San Juan Capistrano is about twenty minutes away, and the coast offers Newport, Huntington Beach and a ferry to Catalina. San Diego, Los Angeles and the Temecula vineyards each make a full day out.

From Moab, nearly every outing is more landscape. The towns within reach, such as Green River and Bluff, are small. The best cultural trip runs south to Edge of the Cedars and the stone towers of Hovenweep, which means a long day in the car.

Laguna is the easier choice with children. It has lifeguarded beaches, tide pools full of crabs and anemones, a free trolley, and Disneyland about forty minutes away. The drawbacks are steep stairways down to the beaches, scarce parking and expensive family rooms.

Moab works best for school-age children who like to scramble. There are short walks to Sand Dune Arch, dinosaur tracks, gentle river floats and Junior Ranger programmes. Unfenced drops, summer heat and long drives make it hard work with toddlers.

You need a car in both towns, but Laguna is less demanding. The village around Main Beach is walkable, and a free trolley runs along Coast Highway to the northern and southern coves. The trouble is parking on summer weekends and the freeway drives to everything else.

In Moab the walkable part ends with Main Street, apart from a paved cycle path to the Arches entrance. The parks are spread along long desert roads and some trailheads need a high-clearance vehicle, so without a car you depend on outfitters' shuttles and tours.

Laguna's shopping is built around art. Galleries sell plein air landscapes and glass, Forest Avenue has boutiques for beachwear and jewellery, and makers sell their own crafts at the summer festivals. For luxury labels, the large malls of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa are half an hour away.

Moab sells what the trail needs: bike parts, climbing gear and sun hats. There are also rock shops with geodes and fossils, and a few galleries with Navajo jewellery and weavings. Nobody goes there to shop.

Both towns are expensive, but Laguna costs more. Clifftop resorts and even simple motels charge high rates, ocean-view meals are costly and parking adds up. The free beaches, trails and trolley soften it a little.

Moab's rooms are also overpriced in spring and autumn, and rafting or jeep tours add up, but there are real savings for those who look for them. One park pass covers a week, public campgrounds and free dispersed camping cost little, and winter is much cheaper.

Laguna has a real summer tradition in the Pageant of the Masters, where live performers recreate famous paintings in an amphitheatre in Laguna Canyon, with an orchestra and narration. The Laguna Playhouse stages plays all year, and opera and symphony are half an hour away in Costa Mesa.

Moab's one highlight is the Moab Music Festival at the end of summer, with chamber concerts in canyon grottoes reached by boat. The rest of the year there is little more than a weekend band in a brewpub.

Laguna is the more restful stay. The pace is slow, the clifftop resorts have full spas with ocean views, and the village has yoga studios and day spas. There are no thermal springs, though, and most of the pampering is expensive.

Moab is built for effort, with early starts and long hot days, and its few massage studios mostly serve cyclists with sore legs. Its calm comes instead from quiet desert evenings and very dark skies. People who want real rest book a ranch or a cabin in the La Sal Mountains.