Las Vegas or Park City?

Neither place is a beach destination, and both send swimmers to a reservoir. Lake Mead near Las Vegas has a gravel shore and warm summer water in a shadeless desert basin. Jordanelle, down the valley from Park City, has sandy swimming areas and lawns, but the water is cool and the season brief.

In practice, most visitors get in the water at their hotel: the Strip's wave pools and lazy rivers in Las Vegas, and outdoor hot tubs in Park City.

Las Vegas offers a much wider choice of food. The Strip gathers celebrity-chef dining rooms, steakhouses and tasting menus, and the long Chinatown run on Spring Mountain Road adds late-night Sichuan, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese cooking at fairer prices.

Park City does one thing well: polished mountain cooking on Main Street, with elk, bison and trout, and an après-ski scene of slopeside decks, whiskey and craft beer. For variety its visitors drive down to Salt Lake City.

Las Vegas gives a curious visitor a little more to see, though most of it is spectacle rather than heritage: the themed resorts with their replica canals and skylines, the fountains in front of the lakeside resort and the light canopy over Fremont Street. The real history is downtown, in the Neon Museum's yard of retired casino signs and the Mob Museum inside the old federal courthouse.

Park City's past looks the part but covers less ground. Restored wooden storefronts climb Main Street, old mine headframes and tramway towers stand on the slopes above, and the Park City Museum in the old city hall still has its basement jail cells. Add the ski and Olympic museums at the 2002 Olympic Park, and an afternoon covers it all.

This is where the two differ most. Las Vegas runs all night, with resort clubs hosting famous DJs, dayclub pool parties and drinks carried along the Strip. Fremont Street and the arts district add cheaper dive bars and craft beer.

Park City's evening starts on the slopeside decks when the lifts close and ends on a short stretch of Main Street saloons and cocktail bars. These are lively on winter weekends but shut long before the small hours, and outside ski season the town is quiet.

Las Vegas has excellent desert within reach: Red Rock's sandstone climbing, Valley of Fire's petroglyphs and Mount Charleston's pine forest. But summer heat shuts down desert hiking for months at a time.

Park City is built around its mountains. Two large ski areas rise straight from town, and Alta, Snowbird and other powder resorts are within an hour. In summer, hundreds of kilometres of singletrack, lift-served biking, fly fishing and autumn aspen start at the edge of the streets.

Las Vegas has one classic outing, Hoover Dam with Boulder City. Beyond that come long tours to the Grand Canyon or Zion, which are landscapes rather than towns.

Park City has shorter and more varied outings: Salt Lake City with Temple Square and the Capitol, the Heber Valley steam railway, the chalet-style town of Midway and Ogden's railroad-era street. Neither list is long, but Park City's gives more choice.

Park City is much easier with children. Ski schools, free buses, a safe small town and the alpine coaster, ziplines and freestyle splash pool at the Olympic Park make a week straightforward, though altitude can tire small children at first.

Las Vegas can fill a day or two with an indoor amusement park, a shark aquarium and the Discovery Children's Museum. But the casino floors are the way through every resort and the adult atmosphere is hard to avoid, so many families use it only as a stop on a national parks road trip.

Park City is simpler to get around. Free buses link Main Street, both ski bases and Kimball Junction, so the car can stay parked until you head for the valleys or other ski areas.

Las Vegas looks compact on a map, but the walks are long because of the vast resorts, footbridges and detours through casinos, and summer heat makes them worse. The monorail and all-night buses help, yet most visitors end up in taxis, and the desert parks need a hire car.

Las Vegas is the better place for serious shopping, with luxury houses in the resort arcades, large department-store malls and two outlet centres, all open late. Park City is more for browsing: galleries, cowboy-boot and Western-wear shops, ski fashion and outdoor gear on Main Street, with an outlet centre at Kimball Junction. Neither has markets or much local craft, though Park City's Western shops make for a more distinctive souvenir.

Neither is cheap, but Las Vegas leaves more room to save. Midweek rooms on the Strip and downtown can be good value and Chinatown meals are inexpensive, though weekends, resort fees and Strip drinks and shows push costs back up.

In ski season, Park City is among the most expensive resorts in North America, from slopeside lodging to lift tickets and ski school, and the festive weeks cost more still. Summer and autumn are much cheaper, and visitors on a budget often stay in Salt Lake City or the Heber Valley.

Shows are a main reason to visit Las Vegas. Permanent theatres stage water and aerial spectacles, magicians and comedians, and pop and country stars who rarely tour play long residencies. The Smith Center adds touring Broadway and the Philharmonic.

Park City's stage is small and seasonal. It centres on the 1920s Egyptian Theatre on Main Street and, in summer, the Utah Symphony on the lawns at Deer Valley. Outside summer there is little on.

Both rely on hotel spas rather than a bathing tradition, but Park City is the easier place to relax. Its lodge spas focus on tired legs, outdoor hot tubs under the snow are standard, and the geothermal crater at Midway lets you swim in water at about 35°C inside a limestone dome.

Las Vegas has some of the largest spas in the country, with salt rooms and thermal circuits, but the casinos around them are lit and loud at every hour. A quiet weekday morning at a non-gaming hotel is the way to make it work.