Las Vegas or Palm Springs?

Neither town has a beach, and in both you will swim in pools. The difference is in style. Las Vegas resorts go big, with sand-lined wave pools and lazy rivers, and Lake Mead's gravel shore is the nearest open water. Palm Springs is quieter, with almost every hotel, motel and rental house built around its own pool, and the salty Salton Sea is a place to look at rather than swim in.

Las Vegas is by far the better place to eat. The Strip resorts hold outposts of famous chefs, French dining rooms and tasting menus, and Spring Mountain Road runs for kilometres with Sichuan, Korean, Vietnamese and Japanese kitchens that stay open late.

Palm Springs is more about the setting than the cooking. Expect shaded brunches, mid-range American restaurants on Palm Canyon Drive, date shakes from the Indio groves and good taquerias further east. It is enjoyable for grazing, but the choice is limited and fine dining is scarce.

Palm Springs gives a curious visitor more to see. Its mid-century modern houses by Albert Frey and Richard Neutra, the Alexander homes with folded roofs in Twin Palms and Vista Las Palmas, and the art museum and Agua Caliente Cultural Museum fill a day of real interest.

Las Vegas is mostly spectacle: replica skylines, the fountain show and the Fremont Street canopy. The Neon Museum and the Mob Museum tell its short history well, but there is little historic building to look at beyond them.

For going out, Las Vegas is in another league. It runs around the clock, with resort nightclubs hosting the best-known DJs, dayclub parties in the afternoon, and cheaper dive and cocktail bars downtown around Fremont Street. Expect dress codes, queues and table service on the Strip.

Palm Springs is friendly but small. The LGBTQ bars of Arenas Road, drag nights and retro cocktail lounges make for a sociable evening, but there are hardly any clubs, and most places close long before the Strip gets going.

Both sit among striking desert scenery, but in Palm Springs it starts at the edge of town. The aerial tramway climbs to pine forest and wilderness trails on San Jacinto, and Tahquitz and the Indian Canyons hide palm oases and a waterfall. Joshua Tree's boulder fields are an hour away.

From Las Vegas, the red sandstone of Red Rock Canyon, the flame-coloured rock of Valley of Fire and the high forests of Mount Charleston are just as rewarding, but each needs a drive out of the city first.

Palm Springs has more varied short outings. You can drive up to Idyllwild in the pines, visit the film-set town of Pioneertown, see Salvation Mountain and the abandoned Salton Sea resorts, or head to the Temecula wineries, all with a car.

Las Vegas has one classic day out, Hoover Dam with the workers' town of Boulder City. The Grand Canyon, Zion and Death Valley tours sold on the Strip are long journeys into the landscape rather than outings to other towns.

Neither is designed for children, but Palm Springs is the easier of the two. It is calm, with the Living Desert zoo, snow at the top of the tramway in winter, warplanes at the Air Museum and gentle canyon walks, and the family resorts lower down the valley are a better base than the adults-only boutique hotels.

In Las Vegas, the route through almost every resort crosses a casino floor, and adult advertising and late-night crowds are everywhere. The indoor rides, shark aquarium and Discovery Children's Museum will fill a day or two at most.

Las Vegas is the easier of the two without a car, though not by much. The monorail and round-the-clock buses cover the Strip and downtown, and taxis and ride-hailing fill the gaps, even if the huge resorts make short walks longer than they look.

Downtown Palm Springs is compact and flat, good on foot or by bike in the cooler months, and the airport is right on the edge of town. Beyond that, the canyons, the tramway and the rest of the valley all depend on a hire car.

Las Vegas has the bigger shopping scene, mostly indoors. Resort malls hold most of the major fashion and jewellery houses, the Fashion Show mall adds department stores, outlet centres sit at either end of the Strip, and the shops stay open late.

Palm Springs is the place for something with character. The Uptown Design District on North Palm Canyon Drive is known for mid-century furniture, lighting and vintage clothing, and the Village Fest street fair sells crafts. For mainstream brands, people drive to El Paseo or the Cabazon outlets.

Both are expensive, but in different ways. In Las Vegas, the time to save is midweek, when rooms can be good value, though resort fees, show tickets and Strip dining soon push the total up. In Palm Springs, the bargain is the summer, when room rates fall sharply for anyone who can bear the heat, while the winter-to-spring season and festival weekends are costly. Both need a car for anything outside town, which adds to the bill.

For shows, Las Vegas is far ahead. Dozens of productions play every night, from water-based acrobatics to magicians and comedians, and star residencies bring acts that rarely tour. The Smith Center adds touring musicals, the philharmonic and ballet.

Palm Springs has its big moment in April, when Coachella and Stagecoach take over Indio. For the rest of the season, the McCallum Theatre and the valley's casinos fill the gap, along with drag cabaret and piano bars in town, and in summer the programme largely stops.

The town of Palm Springs grew up around a hot spring, and it is still one of the easiest places to unwind. You can soak at the Agua Caliente bathhouse downtown or in the mineral pools of Desert Hot Springs, then spend slow afternoons by the pool under San Jacinto.

Las Vegas has huge hotel spas with thermal circuits and salt rooms, and they are restful on a weekday morning. Outside the spa, though, the casinos keep the noise and lights going around the clock.