Las Vegas or Napa?

Neither city offers a beach. In Las Vegas, swimming means the resort pools, some with sand-lined wave pools and lazy rivers, or a drive to the gravel shore of Lake Mead, where the summer water is warm but the setting is bare desert.

Napa's nearest coast, around Bodega Bay, is cold and rough, so people go there to look rather than swim. In summer the choice is a hotel pool or Lake Berryessa in the eastern hills. Las Vegas has the warmer lake and the more elaborate pools. Napa has the ocean within a drive, though not for swimming.

Napa eats better, and its food comes from the place itself. The wine comes from estates along Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail. Yountville and St Helena have a cluster of nationally celebrated restaurants that cook from the farms and kitchen gardens around them, and the market hall in town adds oysters, cheese and bakeries.

Las Vegas has range rather than roots. The Strip gathers famous chefs' outposts, steakhouses and buffets, while the long Chinatown on Spring Mountain Road is more varied and better value, with Asian kitchens open late. What it cannot match is Napa's sense of eating close to where the food and wine are made.

Neither is a sightseeing destination, and a visitor will run out of sights in both within a day or so. Las Vegas offers spectacle: themed resorts, the fountains and the Fremont Street light show. Downtown it adds two good museums, the Neon Museum's yard of retired signs and the Mob Museum in the old federal courthouse.

Napa's interest is quieter and lies more in its buildings. It has Victorian streets and the 1880 opera house on First Street, stone wineries up the valley, and contemporary art at the di Rosa estate in Carneros. Las Vegas tells the more vivid story, while Napa has more period architecture.

This is where the two differ most. Las Vegas runs all night, with casino bars that never close, world-famous DJs in the resort clubs and dayclub pool parties. Around Fremont Street and the arts district there is a cheaper, looser scene of dive bars and cocktail lounges.

In Napa an evening means a long dinner and perhaps a glass at a downtown wine bar, and the town is quiet by late evening. For a real night out, people drive the hour to San Francisco.

Both have fine landscapes close by, and the Las Vegas desert is a little more dramatic. Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire and Lake Mead offer sandstone cliffs, petroglyphs, climbing and boating within an hour. Mount Charleston adds pine forest and winter skiing, though summer heat limits desert hiking to the early morning.

Napa's outdoors is gentler and greener. There is the vineyard floor for cycling, balloon flights at dawn, redwood groves in Bothe-Napa Valley State Park and the climb up Mount St Helena, with Muir Woods and Point Reyes within reach on a longer day. In both places most of it needs a car.

Napa wins clearly here. Yountville, St Helena and Calistoga are short drives away, and Sonoma's plaza and mission are about half an hour over the hills. Healdsburg and the Russian River valley make a second wine region to explore, and San Francisco, Sausalito, Berkeley and Sacramento are all around an hour away.

Las Vegas has one classic outing, Hoover Dam with Boulder City, and beyond that mostly desert. The trips sold to the Grand Canyon, Zion and Death Valley are long days on the road to reach landscapes rather than towns.

Neither city is built for children, but for different reasons. Las Vegas has more to fill a day, with an indoor amusement park, a shark aquarium, thrill rides on the observation tower and the Discovery Children's Museum. But the routes through the resorts cross casino floors, and the late-night adult atmosphere is hard to avoid.

Napa is calm and safe, with a theme and animal park in Vallejo and a geyser near Calistoga. Its days, though, revolve around tastings and long drives that children soon tire of.

Las Vegas is easier to manage without a car for the main sights. Buses run the Strip and on to downtown day and night, a monorail runs behind the resorts and taxis are everywhere. The giant resorts still make walking slower than it looks, and a car or tour is needed for the desert.

In Napa, the compact downtown is easy to walk, but the wineries are spread along some 50km of valley and the buses are too infrequent to rely on. Because tasting and driving do not mix, many visitors pay for a driver or join a tour.

Las Vegas has far more choice. Its resort malls hold most of the big fashion and jewellery houses, a large mall adds department stores, and two outlet centres sit north and south of the Strip, all open late.

Napa's shopping is mostly wine, shipped home by the case. Beyond that there are food gifts in the market hall, cookware and design stores on St Helena's main street and a single outlet mall. Neither city has markets or a crafts tradition, but Napa is better for something tied to the place.

Neither is cheap, but Las Vegas is easier to do for less. Midweek rooms on and near the Strip can be good value, downtown is cheaper still and Chinatown dinners cost little. Weekends, resort fees, shows and clubs push the spending up fast.

Napa is among the most expensive places to stay in the country. Hotels are priced for luxury, estate tastings are costly, the famous restaurants are aimed at special occasions and a driver adds more. Chain hotels to the south, taquerias and smaller cellars help, but the gap remains.

Live shows are one of the main reasons to visit Las Vegas. Permanent theatres stage acrobatic and water-based productions, with magicians and comedians every night and residencies by stars who seldom tour. The Smith Center downtown adds touring Broadway musicals and the Philharmonic.

Napa's programme is small for most of the year. There are concerts and comedy at the old opera house and bands at a 1930s Art Deco theatre, plus a summer classical festival and a late-spring rock and pop festival. Serious theatre and opera mean an evening in San Francisco.

Napa is the more restful choice. Calistoga's mud baths and mineral pools have drawn visitors since the nineteenth century, and the resorts have large spas that use grape seed and vineyard products. The unhurried rhythm of tastings and long lunches does the rest.

Las Vegas has some of the largest hotel spas in the country, with thermal circuits and salt rooms open to day visitors. But the casinos around them are noisy and lit all night, so relaxing there takes planning: stay in a non-gaming hotel and book spa time in the morning.