Laguna Beach or Sun Valley?

Laguna Beach is built around the shore: Main Beach in the village, Crescent Bay and Shaw's Cove to the north, Victoria Beach, Thousand Steps and Aliso to the south, with clear water for snorkelling over the reefs. The Pacific stays cool outside late summer and many coves are reached by steep stairs, but this is a genuine beach town.

Sun Valley is a high mountain valley far from any coast. Summer swimming means the cold water of Redfish Lake under the Sawtooths, a river eddy on the Big Wood or a heated outdoor pool, which is a pleasant extra, not a reason to go.

Neither town is a food destination, and both cater to well-off visitors with high prices. The difference is in what lands on the plate: Laguna leans on seafood, fish tacos, poke and California wine served with an ocean view, while Ketchum cooks Idaho trout, lamb and elk alongside après-ski grills and pizza.

Laguna has the slight edge because the wider Orange County scene, with its Vietnamese, Mexican and Korean cooking, is a short drive inland. Sun Valley has no such fallback, and some of its kitchens cut their hours in spring and autumn.

Laguna Beach has more of a past to explore. The plein air painters who settled there left behind the Laguna Art Museum with its focus on California art, a long run of galleries along Coast Highway and Forest Avenue, and a village of craftsman cottages, and Mission San Juan Capistrano is a short drive inland.

Sun Valley's story is shorter and narrower: the railroad resort of 1936 with the first chairlifts, the film-star photographs in the Sun Valley Lodge corridors and Hemingway's grave in the Ketchum cemetery. Both fit into a few hours, but Laguna gives the curious visitor a little more to look at.

Both are quiet places where evenings end early, so the difference is in the mood. Laguna offers wine bars, a few dive bars and hotel lounges on ocean terraces, and Newport Beach or Costa Mesa are a drive away for a bigger night. Sun Valley's nightlife is après-ski in Ketchum's saloons, with a couple of western bars that stay loud until closing, and it all but stops outside the ski season and midsummer.

Laguna's outdoors are good: a marine protected area along the whole coast for tide pooling, kayaking and shore diving, chaparral ridges in Laguna Coast Wilderness Park and Aliso and Wood Canyons, and grey whales passing in winter.

Sun Valley is in another league for anyone who lives outdoors. Bald Mountain rises straight from town for serious skiing, and Nordic trails and backcountry touring fill the side valleys. Summer brings singletrack, fly fishing on the Big Wood and at Silver Creek, rafting on the Salmon and the alpine lakes of the Sawtooths about an hour north.

Laguna sits in the middle of Southern California, so the choice of outings is wide: Mission San Juan Capistrano twenty minutes inland, the ferry to Catalina from Dana Point or Newport, San Diego's Balboa Park and Old Town to the south, Los Angeles to the north and the Temecula vineyards inland.

Sun Valley's surroundings are wild country, not destinations. Hailey's main street and the log-cabin outpost of Stanley are the nearby options, Shoshone Falls takes about two hours, and most outings are into the mountains.

Laguna works better for most families. Lifeguarded beaches, tide pools full of crabs and anemones and easy snorkelling fill the days, and Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and, further south, Legoland and the San Diego Zoo are within driving range. The steep beach stairs and costly family rooms are the catches.

Sun Valley is easy and safe for families who ski or ride bikes, with a gentle learners' hill and a good ski school. Without a zoo, an aquarium or any wet-weather fallback, it suits fewer children, and the altitude and midwinter cold can be hard on toddlers.

Laguna's village around Main Beach and Forest Avenue is pleasant on foot, and the free trolley runs along Coast Highway between the northern and southern coves. Past that the town is long and hilly, many beaches sit at the bottom of stairways, there is no rail and the buses are slow, so most visitors end up driving and hunting for parking.

Sun Valley is the easier base without a car. Ketchum's flat grid is walkable, a free bus connects town, the village and the lift bases, and a paved path runs down the valley, so a ski week can pass without driving. Trailheads and the Sawtooths still need wheels, and the distant airports and snowy roads make getting there the harder part.

Laguna offers more browsing. Dozens of galleries sell plein air and ocean painting and glass, Forest Avenue has beachwear and jewellery, the summer art festivals sell crafts direct from the makers, and the big luxury malls of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa are about half an hour away. Ketchum's few blocks are narrower and pricier, though its western art galleries and ski and fly-fishing shops are worth a look if you need gear.

Both are among the costliest places you could pick for a vacation, with wealthy residents setting the price of rooms and meals. What helps differs. In Laguna the beaches, trails, tide pools and trolley are free, and many visitors sleep inland and come for the day. In Sun Valley the savings come from staying further down the valley, using the free buses and going in the quiet spring or autumn months, though lift access keeps a winter trip dear.

Laguna has more on stage and spreads it over the year. Its summer centrepiece is the Pageant of the Masters, where live performers recreate famous paintings in a canyon amphitheatre with an orchestra, while the Laguna Playhouse runs plays and musicals in every season. Opera and touring Broadway shows are half an hour away in Costa Mesa.

Sun Valley's moment is summer, when a full orchestra plays free concerts in the pavilion by the lodge and people picnic on the lawn, and skaters perform on the outdoor rink in the evenings. Outside those weeks there is very little to see.

Both are slow, restful places without a real bathing tradition, but they relax you in different ways. Laguna's version is a clifftop morning walk, yoga in the village, a resort spa looking over the ocean and a long sunset. Sun Valley adds water you can soak in: steaming outdoor pools under falling snow and rough natural hot springs beside the creek up the Warm Springs valley.