Las Vegas or Santa Monica?

There is no contest here. Las Vegas is a desert city hours from the ocean. Swimming there means a resort wave pool or the shadeless gravel shore of Boulder Beach on Lake Mead.

Santa Monica has a real beach: wide, pale and watched by lifeguards, with Zuma, El Matador and the Point Dume coves within reach along the Malibu shore. The limit is the Pacific, which stays cool for most of the year, so plenty of visitors paddle rather than swim.

Las Vegas has the deeper range of food. At the top end there are chef outposts, French dining rooms and tasting menus on the Strip. Away from the resorts, Sichuan, Korean and Vietnamese kitchens stay open late along Spring Mountain Road. Santa Monica eats more lightly and with the seasons, led by its Wednesday farmers market and the neighbourhood places on Main Street and Montana Avenue.

Neither city has a cuisine of its own. The difference is that Las Vegas has serious Asian cooking a short ride from the hotels, while the best cheap immigrant food near Santa Monica is a long drive east across Los Angeles.

Neither is a sightseeing city, but Santa Monica gives you more for a cultural day. The Getty Center, with its European collections, and the Getty Villa, with its Greek and Roman antiquities, are a short drive away. Closer to home, Bergamot Station's galleries and the early twentieth-century pier add some local character.

Las Vegas offers spectacle rather than heritage: replica skylines, the fountain show and the light canopy over Fremont Street. The Neon Museum and the Mob Museum are well done, but a single day covers the city's real history.

The two could hardly be more different after dark. Las Vegas never closes. It has DJ residencies in the resort clubs, dayclub pool parties and drinks you can carry along the Strip. Around Fremont Street and the arts district there is a looser, cheaper scene of dive bars and craft beer.

Santa Monica is made for an evening rather than a whole night out: rooftop drinks over the ocean, pubs on Main Street, and a town that goes quiet well before the bars close. A real club night means a long taxi ride to Hollywood.

Both have impressive country close by, but of opposite kinds. From Las Vegas the draw is desert rock: Red Rock Canyon's sandstone cliffs and climbing routes, the petroglyphs at Valley of Fire, and the pine forests of Mount Charleston. All of it needs a car, and the desert is off-limits at midday in summer.

In Santa Monica the outdoors starts at the edge of town. There are canyon trails in Topanga and Temescal, a 35km beach path, surf lessons and whale watching in winter, and the mild climate allows all of it on almost any day of the year.

From Las Vegas the obvious day out is Hoover Dam combined with Boulder City. The Grand Canyon, Zion and Death Valley trips sold on the Strip are long days on the road to see scenery, with little to stop for on the way.

Santa Monica has a much better range of outings. Santa Barbara with its mission and wine country, the coves of Laguna Beach, Catalina by ferry and the Huntington in Pasadena each make a good day out, as long as you plan around the traffic.

Las Vegas can fill a day or two with its indoor rides, shark aquarium and children's museum. But casino floors stand between children and almost everything, and the summer heat wears them out fast. The city works best as one stop on a road trip to the national parks.

Santa Monica is plainly the easier choice with children. It has lifeguarded sand, the pier's Ferris wheel and carousel, an aquarium of local sea life and gentle weather all year. The theme parks are a long drive away, though, and some families find the homelessness around downtown unsettling.

The Strip looks walkable on a map, but in practice it is not. The resorts are vast, and pedestrians are sent over footbridges and through casinos, with summer heat on top. The monorail and round-the-clock buses help, but taxis do most of the work, and the desert needs a hire car.

Santa Monica is easier without a car, at least within town. Downtown, the pier and Main Street are all within walking distance, blue buses fill the gaps, and the light rail reaches downtown Los Angeles in about an hour. Further afield, freeway traffic and patchy transit push most visitors into cars.

Las Vegas is the stronger place for big brands. Its resort malls, from the Roman-themed arcade to the Venetian's canal-side shops, bring the major fashion and jewellery houses under one roof and stay open late. Two outlet centres cater for bargain hunters.

Santa Monica has fewer big names but more character. There are independents and surf shops on Main Street, boutiques on Montana Avenue and design-led stores on Abbot Kinney in Venice, and Rodeo Drive is a drive away for luxury labels.

Neither is cheap, but Las Vegas is easier on a budget if you stay midweek, eat in Chinatown and keep away from the clubs and tables. Weekend rates and resort fees quickly change the picture.

Santa Monica is expensive all year, and most of all in summer. Oceanfront hotels cost a lot, restaurant bills are high, and parking comes on top. The consolation is that the best of it, the beach, the trails and the bike path, costs nothing.

Las Vegas is one of the world's great show towns. Permanent theatres stage water-based and aerial productions, magicians and comedians perform every night, and stars who rarely tour take long residencies. The Smith Center adds touring Broadway musicals, the Philharmonic and ballet.

Santa Monica's own stage is small and intimate: the Broad Stage, folk and acoustic rooms, and free summer concerts on the pier. The Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall are within reach, but each means a slow drive across Los Angeles.

The two are close here, but they offer different ways to relax. Las Vegas has large indoor resort spas with thermal circuits, salt rooms and saunas. They are restful on a weekday morning, but they sit inside casinos built to keep you stimulated.

Santa Monica's version is outdoors and mostly up to you: yoga on the sand, a morning run along the ocean, polished hotel spas and sunset over the bay. Neither city has a tradition of public baths.