Laguna Beach or Sonoma?

This is where the two differ most. Laguna Beach is a string of small coves and beaches, from Main Beach in the village to Crescent Bay, Victoria Beach and the wide sand at Aliso, with clear water and reefs that are good for snorkelling. The Pacific is cool, though, except in late summer.

Sonoma has no beach of its own. The Bodega Bay coast is well over an hour away and too cold and rough for swimming, so a swim means a hotel pool or the gravel shores of the Russian River on a hot afternoon.

Sonoma is the better place to eat and drink, because wine is what made it a destination. There are tasting rooms all round the plaza, Carneros Pinot Noir and old-vine Zinfandel are a short drive away, and the kitchens cook with local produce, cheese and oysters from the coast.

Laguna Beach eats well enough at a sunset table, with fish tacos, poke and local seafood, but it has no cooking of its own and much of the bill is for the view. Neither town offers much variety or late eating. From Laguna the answer is a drive inland to Orange County's Vietnamese and Mexican restaurants.

Neither town is a cultural destination, and each fills about half a day, but what you see is quite different. Laguna Beach's story is art: the plein air painters' colony, the Laguna Art Museum with its California collection, and the galleries along Coast Highway.

Sonoma's story is history. The Bear Flag plaza, Mission San Francisco Solano, the adobe barracks and Vallejo's Gothic house are all within a short walk of each other, while Laguna's nearest mission is a drive away in San Juan Capistrano.

Both towns are quiet by midnight, but Laguna Beach has a little more going on, with beach bars, dive bars and hotel lounges on ocean terraces that fill up on summer weekends, and Newport Beach close by if you want more. In Sonoma the evening usually ends with dinner and a glass at a wine bar or saloon on the plaza, and a real night out means a trip to Santa Rosa or San Francisco.

Both have fine outdoor country close at hand, of very different kinds. Laguna Beach looks to the water: the whole shoreline is a marine protected area for tide pooling, snorkelling, kayaking and shore diving, and the canyon trails of Laguna Coast Wilderness Park rise behind the town.

Sonoma is all about the valley. You can walk from the plaza up to the Sonoma Overlook, find redwoods and views from Bald Mountain at Sugarloaf Ridge, cycle through the vines and watch balloons go up on calm mornings. In both places the hills are greenest in spring and dry by late summer.

From Laguna Beach the outings vary a great deal. Mission San Juan Capistrano is about twenty minutes inland, Huntington Beach's surf culture and Dana Point harbour are just along the coast, and a ferry crosses to Avalon on Catalina Island. For a long day, San Diego's Old Town and Balboa Park lie to the south, and Los Angeles is a similar drive north if the traffic allows.

Sonoma's big outing is San Francisco, about an hour away, so you can spend a full day in the city and still have a quiet evening back in the valley. After that, most choices are more wine country, such as Napa, Yountville and Healdsburg's plaza. Petaluma's Victorian river town and the bay towns of Sausalito and Tiburon offer a change of scene.

Laguna Beach works far better with children. Lifeguarded beaches, tide pools full of crabs and anemones, and easy snorkelling fill the days, and Disneyland is about forty minutes away. The steep stairs down to the beaches and the cost of family rooms are real drawbacks.

Sonoma is calm and safe, but it is built around tasting rooms and long lunches. The plaza playground, a miniature railway and a wildlife park near Santa Rosa are enough for a day or two, not a week.

You need a car in both towns, but Laguna Beach is a little easier without one. Its free trolley runs along Coast Highway between the northern and southern beaches, and the village around Forest Avenue is easy to walk, although parking is a struggle in summer.

In Sonoma the plaza and the tasting rooms near it are easy on foot, but the wineries and parks are spread across the valley and the buses are of little use. Many visitors hire a driver or join a tour so that nobody has to drive after tasting, and the flat valley roads make cycling to the nearer wineries easy.

Laguna Beach has more to browse. There are dozens of galleries selling plein air paintings and glass, beachwear and jewellery shops on Forest Avenue, craft stalls at the summer art festivals, and large luxury malls half an hour away in Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. Sonoma's shopping is quieter and mostly about food and drink: olive oil, cheese and wine bought where they are made, plus a few boutiques around the plaza, but almost no fashion.

Both are expensive in much the same way, with high room rates in summer and restaurants aimed at well-off visitors. The extra costs differ: in Laguna Beach it is parking and ocean-view tables, in Sonoma it is tasting fees and a car or driver.

The free pleasures differ too. On the coast you have the beaches, trails and trolley, and in the valley a picnic among the vines. In both places the way to save is to sleep elsewhere: inland or further up the coast for Laguna, Santa Rosa or Petaluma for Sonoma.

Laguna Beach has the more memorable summer evening in the Pageant of the Masters, where live performers recreate famous paintings in a canyon amphitheatre, and the Laguna Playhouse puts on plays all year. The large arts centre in Costa Mesa is half an hour away.

Sonoma is quieter and mostly seasonal. There are outdoor concerts at Jack London State Historic Park and at wineries, a 1930s theatre on the plaza, and the Green Music Center's concert hall half an hour away. Outside summer there is little on.

Sonoma is the better choice for a restful stay, thanks to Boyes Hot Springs, where natural mineral water fills the pools of a historic resort spa that sells day passes to non-guests. Calistoga's mud baths are an hour away, and quiet mornings on the plaza and silent evenings do the rest.

Laguna Beach has no springs, so wellness there means resort spas on the bluffs, yoga studios in the village and walks along the clifftops. Its calm comes from the coast and the long sunsets over the water.