Las Vegas or San Jose?

Neither city is a beach destination, but San Jose at least has a real coast within reach. Over the Santa Cruz Mountains, Santa Cruz, Capitola and the Monterey Bay coves have sand and a proper seaside-town feel, although the cold Pacific means paddling or surfing in a wetsuit rather than swimming.

Las Vegas has no sea at all. Its swimming happens in the resort pools, some with sand-lined wave pools and lazy rivers, or at the gravel shore of Boulder Beach on Lake Mead, where the water is warm but the desert setting has no shade.

Las Vegas offers more range and more polish. The Strip gathers famous chefs' outposts, steakhouses, French dining rooms and tasting menus, and Spring Mountain Road runs for kilometres with pan-Asian kitchens open late. The drawback is that most of it is imported and priced for resorts.

San Jose's best eating is more rooted but harder to find. The Vietnamese cooking of Little Saigon and the east side is outstanding, and taquerias, Korean and Indian places line the corridors towards Sunnyvale, but they are scattered across suburban plazas reached by car. Los Gatos, Saratoga and the mountain wineries add a slower, wine-country layer that Las Vegas cannot match.

Neither is a city for heritage, but San Jose has a little more to visit. The Winchester Mystery House, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, Mission Santa Clara and the Computer History Museum in nearby Mountain View fill a couple of days with genuine oddities and some real history.

Las Vegas offers spectacle instead: replica skylines, the fountains, the canopy over Fremont Street. The Neon Museum and the Mob Museum tell the city's story well, but after those the list is short and there is almost no old architecture.

This is where the two cities are furthest apart. Las Vegas runs all night, with superclub DJ residencies, dayclub pool parties, open-container drinking on the Strip and a cheaper, looser scene of dive bars and craft beer around Fremont Street and the arts district. Expect dress codes, queues and table service on the Strip.

San Jose's going out is pleasant and small. San Pedro Square fills before and after arena events, and the SoFA district on South First Street has cocktail bars and a few dance clubs, but it is busy mainly at weekends and ends early. Locals wanting a big night head to San Francisco.

Both cities have fine outdoors close by, of very different kinds. Las Vegas is all desert drama: the sandstone cliffs and world-class climbing of Red Rock Canyon, the flame-coloured rock and petroglyphs of Valley of Fire, kayaking on Lake Mead and pine forest on Mount Charleston. Summer heat rules out hiking for much of the day from June to September.

San Jose is greener and more varied. There are old-growth redwoods at Big Basin and Henry Cowell, ridge trails at Castle Rock, foothill preserves on the city edge, and the Monterey Bay with sea otters, whale watching and the headlands of Point Lobos. It is usable for most of the year. In both cities a car is essential.

San Jose is far ahead. San Francisco is an easy train ride away, Stanford, Palo Alto, Berkeley and Oakland are close, and to the south lie Santa Cruz, Monterey's Cannery Row and Carmel. Napa and Sonoma are within reach, with small towns such as Los Gatos and Half Moon Bay for half days.

Las Vegas has Hoover Dam and Boulder City, and then little else nearby. The Grand Canyon, Zion and Death Valley trips sold on the Strip are long journeys across empty desert rather than varied outings.

San Jose is the more natural choice with children. Great America in Santa Clara, the gentle Happy Hollow zoo, the downtown discovery and technology museums, and outings to the Boardwalk and the Monterey Bay Aquarium make an easy programme, helped by mild weather.

Las Vegas can fill a day or two with its indoor rides, the shark aquarium, the tower thrill rides and the free fountain show. But casino floors stand between children and almost everything, the adult atmosphere is hard to avoid and summer heat makes walking difficult, so most families pass through on a national parks road trip.

Las Vegas is slightly easier because so much is concentrated on one corridor. The monorail and round-the-clock buses cover the Strip and downtown, although the resorts' vast scale, footbridges and heat make walking slower than it looks.

San Jose has a walkable downtown, light rail and Caltrain to San Francisco, but its sights, malls, parks and the coast are spread across a valley of freeways. Visitors to either city end up relying on a hire car or ride-hailing, and in San Jose that means planning around rush-hour traffic.

Both are mall cities, but Las Vegas does it on a bigger, later-opening scale. The themed arcades at Caesars Palace and the Venetian, the luxury mall at the centre of the Strip, Fashion Show and two outlet centres fit easily around a resort stay.

San Jose's large west-side mall and its open-air boutique street cover the main brands with easy parking. It has slightly more local character, too: Japantown's old shops, the main streets of Willow Glen and Los Gatos, and Asian plazas worth browsing.

Las Vegas is the easier city on the wallet, if you are careful. Midweek rooms can be cheap for what they offer, but weekends and conventions multiply rates, resort fees are added, and shows, clubs and Strip dining are expensive.

San Jose's costs are those of Silicon Valley. Hotels charge business rates, so weekends are the cheaper time, and restaurants, parking, car hire and fuel all add up. Suburban Vietnamese and Mexican eateries and the free parks and trails are the main relief.

Las Vegas is one of the world's great stages for spectacle. Purpose-built theatres hold long-running acrobatic, aquatic and magic shows, and pop, rock and country stars take residencies, with dozens of choices any night. The Smith Center adds Broadway tours and the philharmonic.

San Jose's calendar is smaller but more traditional. Opera San José performs in the restored California Theatre, the symphony and touring musicals share the Center for the Performing Arts, and the summer jazz festival fills downtown. On a weeknight there is far less to choose from.

Las Vegas has the edge thanks to sheer resort scale. Its huge hotel spas, with thermal circuits, salt rooms and saunas open to day visitors, can be calm on a weekday morning, though the noise of the casinos makes a non-gaming hotel the wiser base.

San Jose offers quieter, smaller pleasures: Korean-style bathhouses in the valley towns, suburban day spas, the leafy streets of Los Gatos and Saratoga, and the Japanese gardens at Hakone and Kelley Park. None of it adds up to a reason to come.