Laguna Beach or Sedona?

This is the widest gap between the two. Laguna is strung along small beaches and coves, from the volleyball nets at Main Beach to Crescent Bay, Thousand Steps and the wide sand at Aliso, and its clear water is good for snorkelling over the reefs. The Pacific stays cool for much of the year, so swimming is best in late summer.

Sedona has no coast at all. You swim in Oak Creek instead, sliding down the sandstone chute at Slide Rock or dropping into the pools at Grasshopper Point. The water is cold, good for cooling off after a hike but not for a day on the sand.

Neither town is worth travelling to for the food, but Laguna gives you more to work with: fish tacos and poke near the beach, seafood kitchens paired with California wine, and the Vietnamese, Mexican and Korean restaurants of wider Orange County a short drive inland. Sedona's menus lean Southwestern, with chilli, corn and grilled meat and plenty for vegetarians, and the choice runs out sooner. Its consolation is the Verde Valley tasting rooms just down the road.

Both are light on sights, and a morning goes a long way in either. Laguna has a little more in town: the legacy of the plein air painters who founded its art colony, the California collection at the Laguna Art Museum, and gallery rows along Coast Highway and Forest Avenue.

Sedona's best-known building is the Chapel of the Holy Cross, built into a red butte. Its deeper history lies out in the backcountry, at the Sinagua cliff dwellings of Palatki and Honanki and the V Bar V petroglyphs, so culture there is something you drive and walk to.

Neither town suits a late night, but Laguna gives an evening a little more room. On summer weekends the village keeps people out after dinner, and you can move from a sunset table on the cliffs to a wine bar or a hotel terrace above the water. When that runs out, the larger towns of the Orange County coast are a short drive away. Sedona has nothing like that within easy reach.

Sedona offers quiet instead. Its brewpubs and resort lounges are good for one drink before bed, because most visitors here plan their days around early hikes. What you get in return is the desert sky. Far from big-city lights, the stars over the red rocks are something Laguna, inside the glow of Southern California, cannot give you.

Laguna's outdoors run from ridge to reef. Chaparral trails cross Laguna Coast Wilderness Park and Aliso and Wood Canyons. Below the town, the whole coast is a marine protected area for tide pooling, kayaking and shore diving over kelp, with dolphins offshore and grey whales passing in winter.

For walking and riding, though, Sedona is in another league. Cathedral Rock, Bell Rock, Devil's Bridge and Boynton Canyon rise straight out of the juniper around town, and mountain bikers come for the slickrock singletrack. Oak Creek Canyon climbs into pine forest, and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon is about two hours' drive away.

Laguna puts more within a drive: Mission San Juan Capistrano twenty minutes inland, the Catalina ferry from Dana Point or Newport, and San Diego or Los Angeles for a full day out. Sedona's outings are smaller but have their own character: the hillside mining town of Jerome, the Verde Canyon Railroad, and ancient sites such as Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot. A few days cover them, while Laguna's list runs much longer.

Laguna is the easier choice with children. Lifeguarded beaches, tide pools and easy snorkelling fill the days, and Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are about forty minutes away. The steep stairways down to the beaches and the cost of family rooms do take some planning.

Sedona suits families who like being outside, with Slide Rock in summer, short trails at Bell Rock and jeep tours over the slickrock. There is no zoo, aquarium or theme park, though, and the heat and exposed trails need care with small children.

You need a car in both, but Laguna asks a little less of it. The village around Main Beach and Forest Avenue is easy to walk, and a free trolley runs along Coast Highway between the beaches. Sedona is spread along two highways that meet at the Y. Only Uptown is walkable, a shuttle serves just a few trailheads, and most visitors start with a two-hour drive up from Phoenix.

Art leads in both towns. Laguna has the longer gallery rows on Coast Highway and in North Laguna, crafts sold by their makers at the summer festivals and boutiques on Forest Avenue, and the big luxury malls of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa are about half an hour away. Sedona's shopping centres on the courtyards of Tlaquepaque, Native American jewellery, pottery and rugs, and the crystal and metaphysical shops it is known for. For fashion, you have to go to Phoenix.

Laguna is the harder place to make a budget last. Rates stay high from the clifftop resorts down to plain motels, ocean-view meals cost a lot and paid parking adds up quickly. The beaches, trails and trolley are free.

Sedona is only a little kinder. Its resorts and lodges cost the most in spring and autumn, and jeep tours, balloon flights and spa treatments push the bill higher, but most trails need only a parking pass. To save money, people sleep in Cottonwood or Flagstaff and drive in, just as Laguna's budget visitors stay inland or further up the coast.

Laguna has far more to see in the evening. The Pageant of the Masters, in which performers recreate famous paintings as living tableaux in a canyon amphitheatre, has been a summer tradition since the 1930s. The Laguna Playhouse stages plays and musicals all year, and opera and symphony are half an hour away in Costa Mesa.

Sedona offers a scattering of chamber concerts, local theatre and its film festival in late winter, plus flute players and acoustic sets in resort bars. It has no concert hall or regular theatre season.

This is where Sedona pulls well ahead. It is a retreat town, with destination spas below the red rocks, yoga, meditation and breathwork sessions all over town, and the sunrise walks to the vortexes that many visitors come for.

Laguna's calm is quieter and less organised: clifftop walks, long sunsets over the Pacific and spas in the resorts on the bluffs. Neither town has hot springs or a bathing tradition.