Las Vegas or Telluride?

Neither place is for swimmers, and what they offer instead is quite different. Las Vegas has warm water at Lake Mead's gravel Boulder Beach and big resort pools with wave pools and lazy rivers, good for a hot afternoon. Telluride has only a small swimming area in a cold reservoir an hour away, and summer water time there means rafting, paddling or fishing.

Las Vegas eats far more widely. The Strip gathers steakhouses, French dining rooms, tasting menus and famous buffets, and Chinatown on Spring Mountain Road adds kilometres of Sichuan, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese cooking, much of it open late.

Telluride does well for its size, with a few serious kitchens cooking Colorado lamb, elk and trout, plus taquerias and bakeries. After a few days, though, you are back at the same small circle of places.

Both are light on sights, but in opposite ways. In Las Vegas the attraction is modern spectacle: themed resorts, the fountains and the Fremont Street light canopy, with real history limited to the Neon Museum and the Mob Museum. Telluride offers authenticity instead, a whole mining-boom town of clapboard houses and false-fronted stores protected as a National Historic Landmark, with mill ruins on the canyon walls above.

This is the widest gap between the two. Las Vegas is built for going out, with casino bars that never close, superstar DJs in resort clubs, pool dayclubs and a Strip as busy at three in the morning as at nine in the evening. For something looser, the dive bars and cocktail lounges downtown are cheaper.

In Telluride, evenings mean après-ski and a handful of historic saloons on Colorado Avenue. These can be busy on festival weekends and in peak ski weeks, but there are no clubs, and outside the high seasons the town is quiet early.

Telluride is surrounded by mountains in a way Las Vegas is not. Peaks above 4,000m, Bridal Veil Falls and high lakes start minutes from the main street, and the ski area rises directly above town. Summer adds mountain biking, fly fishing and jeep roads over the passes.

Las Vegas has excellent desert country within an hour, with the sandstone cliffs and climbing of Red Rock, the flame-coloured rock of Valley of Fire and the forests of Mount Charleston. All of it needs a car, though, and summer heat closes most of it off.

Both are isolated, so neither is a strong base for outings. From Las Vegas the real day out is Hoover Dam with Boulder City, and the Grand Canyon or Zion tours are long hauls to scenery. Telluride gives you old mining towns along mountain roads, Ouray in its narrow canyon and Silverton over Red Mountain Pass, with the Mesa Verde cliff dwellings just within reach. Its catch is that winter passes can close.

Telluride is the better place for children, especially active ones. The town is quiet and safe, the gondola and beginner slopes keep younger children busy, and summer brings easy waterfall walks and fishing. It has no zoo, aquarium or indoor attractions, and the altitude can disturb small children's sleep at first.

Las Vegas has more to buy a ticket for, including an indoor amusement park, a shark aquarium and a children's museum. However, casino floors, adult advertising and summer heat make it hard work with children, and many families treat it as one stop on a national parks road trip.

Telluride is far simpler once you arrive. The historic grid takes a quarter of an hour to cross on foot, and the free gondola and town buses mean many visitors never use a car. The difficulty is getting there, by mountain road or through a weather-prone airport.

Las Vegas looks walkable on a map, but its huge resorts, footbridges and casino detours stretch every walk. Most visitors use taxis, ride-hailing or the monorail, and need a hire car for the desert.

Las Vegas is a genuine shopping destination, though entirely indoors. Its resort arcades hold the major fashion and jewellery houses, the Fashion Show mall adds department stores, and two outlet centres cater to bargain hunters. Telluride has a few blocks of galleries, Western boutiques, bookshops and outdoor gear shops, which are pleasant for browsing but not a reason to go. Neither has markets or local crafts.

Neither is cheap, but Las Vegas can be managed. Midweek rooms on and near the Strip, and downtown, are good value for their size, and eating in Chinatown keeps food costs down. Weekends, resort fees and drinks on the Strip push the bill back up.

Telluride is expensive from start to finish, with scarce rooms priced for second-home owners and lift tickets and restaurants at the top of the market. Staying in Ridgway is the main way to save, at the price of a daily drive.

Las Vegas offers far more to see. Dozens of shows play every night in purpose-built theatres, from water acrobatics to magic and comedy, and major stars take long residencies. The Smith Center adds touring musicals and the Philharmonic.

Telluride's music is seasonal. The Bluegrass Festival in Town Park, the jazz and chamber music festivals and the film festival make summer memorable, and the Sheridan Opera House keeps a few shows going year round, but outside festival time there is little on.

The two are fairly even, and each relaxes you in its own way. In Las Vegas it happens inside vast resort spas with thermal circuits and salt rooms, best on a weekday morning before the casino noise takes over. Telluride is calm by nature, especially in the shoulder seasons. The hot springs pool in Ouray and the springs near Ridgway offer a soak with mountain views, though the altitude can unsettle the first nights.