Laguna Beach or Santa Fe?

This is where the two cities differ most. Laguna Beach lines up one cove after another: Main Beach in the village, Crescent Bay and Shaw's Cove to the north, Victoria Beach and the wide sand at Aliso to the south. The water is clear enough to snorkel over the reefs, and in late summer it is warm enough for a proper swim.

Santa Fe sits on a plateau with no coast at all. Swimming there means a lake trip to Abiquiu or a float down the Rio Grande, so if the beach is part of the plan, the choice is already made.

Santa Fe is where the eating is worth travelling for. New Mexican cooking, with its red and green chile, blue corn, posole and sopaipillas, is a cuisine of its own, served in old adobe dining rooms around the Plaza. On top of that there is more fine dining than a town this size usually has, and the Railyard farmers' market is worth a morning.

Laguna eats well but without a local identity. Expect fish tacos, poke and seafood with California wine, often at prices that include the ocean view. If you want variety, drive inland to Orange County's Vietnamese, Mexican and Korean restaurants.

Laguna's heritage is short and specific: the plein air painters who settled here in the early twentieth century. Their legacy is the Laguna Art Museum, the galleries along Coast Highway and Forest Avenue and a scatter of craftsman cottages. It makes a pleasant morning, and the mission at San Juan Capistrano, the nearest major historic sight, is outside town.

Santa Fe was a Spanish colonial capital three centuries before Laguna's painters arrived, and it still looks the part. The Palace of the Governors, the cathedral, San Miguel and the Loretto Chapel stand within a few streets of the adobe Plaza, and Museum Hill, the O'Keeffe Museum and Canyon Road easily fill two or three days.

Neither town is the place for a late night, and both are quiet before midnight. In Laguna an evening out means a beach bar, a dive bar or a hotel terrace above the ocean. In Santa Fe it means a long dinner, then a margarita on a rooftop facing the sunset over the Jemez Mountains, or a brewery near the Railyard. For a real night out, people in Laguna drive up the coast to Newport Beach or Costa Mesa, while Santa Fe sends them an hour south to Albuquerque.

Both are fine bases for the outdoors, but the land around Santa Fe is bigger and more varied. Trails start at the edge of town and climb through piñon foothills to aspen forest and the Pecos Wilderness. Valles Caldera, rafting in the Rio Grande Gorge, the red cliffs around Abiquiu and winter skiing are all within reach.

Laguna's best outdoors is in the water. The whole coast is a marine protected area, good for snorkelling over kelp, kayaking and tide pooling, and grey whales pass in winter. On land, the canyon trails in Aliso and Wood Canyons and Crystal Cove make good half-day walks.

Both towns have a long list of day trips, and both need a car for nearly all of them. The difference is the kind of place you reach. From Laguna the outings are coastal and urban: Huntington Beach, Dana Point, the ferry to Catalina, and San Diego or Los Angeles if you can face the drive.

From Santa Fe they go back in time. You can take the High Road through Chimayo to Taos Pueblo, visit the cliff dwellings at Bandelier, Pecos and the mining villages on the Turquoise Trail, or see the pueblos open to visitors on their feast days.

Laguna is clearly easier with children. The lifeguarded beaches, tide pools and easy snorkelling keep them busy, and Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are a short drive away. The drawbacks are the steep stairs down to many coves, the scarce summer parking and the cost of family rooms.

Santa Fe has the Children's Museum, the miniatures at the folk art museum and the ladders at Bandelier's cliff dwellings. Most of the town, though, is built around galleries and dinners, and the altitude can tire young children at first. Families with older children who like hiking will enjoy it most.

Santa Fe is a little easier on foot. The Plaza, Canyon Road, the downtown museums and the Railyard are all within about twenty minutes' walk of each other, and the Rail Runner train goes to Albuquerque. Museum Hill, the trailheads and the pueblos still need a car.

Laguna's village is walkable and a free trolley runs along Coast Highway. Beyond that there is no rail service, the buses are slow, many coves can only be reached by stairs and parking fills early in summer. That makes a car both necessary and a nuisance.

Laguna's shops follow its art colony and its beach: galleries of ocean and landscape painting and glass, beachwear and jewellery on Forest Avenue, and handmade crafts at the summer art festivals. For fashion and luxury labels, the big malls of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa are about half an hour's drive, an option Santa Fe barely has.

For anyone buying art or craft, though, Santa Fe is the stronger destination. Native American artists sell silver, turquoise and pottery directly under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, Canyon Road and the Railyard are packed with galleries, and the summer Indian, Spanish and Folk Art markets bring collectors from far away. Outside that specialism, there is little fashion or luxury.

Neither is a cheap trip, but Laguna is the harder one on the wallet. Even simple motels charge high rates there in summer, and dinners with an ocean view and paid parking add up fast, so many visitors stay inland and come for the day.

Santa Fe is also expensive for its size, especially during the summer markets and the opera season. Rooms along Cerrillos Road give more choice at lower rates, and hiking and gallery browsing cost nothing. The hire car you need is the main extra cost.

Laguna's summer evenings belong to the Pageant of the Masters, an odd and rather charming tradition in which live performers recreate famous paintings as tableaux in a canyon amphitheatre, with an orchestra and narration. The Laguna Playhouse stages plays all year, but for opera and symphony you drive to Costa Mesa.

Santa Fe's summer is built around serious music. The Santa Fe Opera plays in an open-sided theatre on a hill as the sun sets over the desert, staging rarely heard works alongside the classics, and there is a respected chamber music festival and a long flamenco tradition too. Outside midsummer the programme shrinks to touring shows at the Lensic and concerts in the old churches.

Santa Fe gives more to someone who comes to soak and recharge. There are outdoor tubs among the pines on the road to the ski area, plenty of yoga and massage in town, and the mineral pools at Ojo Caliente about an hour north, a bathing resort since the nineteenth century.

Laguna has no springs or bathhouses. Its spas are mostly inside expensive clifftop resorts. What it has is the ocean: an unhurried pace, early clifftop walks and long sunsets over the water.