Los Angeles or Newport Beach?

Both towns face the same cool Pacific, so neither is the place for a warm-water swimming vacation, and wetsuits are common on both coasts. What differs is how the beach fits into your days. Los Angeles has far more shoreline, from the coves of Malibu past Santa Monica and Venice to the South Bay. For most visitors, though, it is an afternoon trip across traffic from wherever they are staying.

In Newport the beach is the town. The Balboa Peninsula has surf by the piers and the notorious Wedge, Corona del Mar has calmer coves, and the harbour has sheltered sand where toddlers can paddle. Tide pools at Little Corona and Crystal Cove are a short walk or drive south.

Food is one of the strongest reasons to choose Los Angeles. Whole immigrant communities cook there: regional Chinese in the San Gabriel Valley, charcoal barbecue in Koreatown, taco trucks across the Eastside, and Thai, Armenian, Ethiopian and Oaxacan kitchens. A serious chef-led dining scene sits on top of all that.

Newport eats comfortably but narrowly. It has harbour-view seafood, brunch in Corona del Mar, and fish tacos and Balboa's frozen bananas by the sand, often at prices above what the cooking deserves. The best meals nearby mean driving inland to Costa Mesa or to Little Saigon in Westminster.

Los Angeles has a real cultural itinerary. It has the Getty Center and Getty Villa, LACMA and the Broad, the Huntington's library and gardens, and Griffith Observatory looking out at the Hollywood Sign. There are also the studio lots, Art Deco downtown and mid-century houses. It lacks an old quarter, and the sights are far apart.

Newport is not a sightseeing town at all. The Balboa Pavilion of 1905, Schindler's Lovell Beach House and Sherman Library & Gardens fill an afternoon at most, and for a serious art museum you go to Costa Mesa.

Los Angeles gives you a choice of whole scenes. There are velvet-rope clubs in Hollywood, the gay bars of West Hollywood's Santa Monica Boulevard, rooftop and cocktail bars downtown, and dive bars and natural wine in Silver Lake and Echo Park. You just have to pick one district per night.

Newport has no clubs. Its evenings are either rowdy beach bars by the piers on summer weekends or a glass of wine at a harbour lounge before midnight, and out of season it goes quiet early. Locals in search of a big night drive to Costa Mesa or up to Los Angeles.

Los Angeles has far more wild country within reach. There are hikes in Griffith Park and the Hollywood Hills, chaparral ridges in the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu, and pine forest and winter snow in the San Gabriels, which rise above 3,000m. Boats also run out to the Channel Islands.

Newport's outdoors is gentler but right on the doorstep. You can cycle or birdwatch around the Upper Newport Bay estuary, walk the bluffs and canyons of Crystal Cove, or paddle and sail in the harbour. For real elevation, you drive about an hour to the Santa Ana Mountains.

Newport sits in the middle of the Southern California coast, and that makes it the better base for days out. Laguna Beach is about twenty minutes away, Mission San Juan Capistrano half an hour, and the Catalina ferry leaves from Balboa itself. Even San Diego is close enough for a day.

From Los Angeles the best outing runs the other way, up the coast to Santa Barbara and the Santa Ynez vineyards or inland to Ojai. Its southern trips start further away and depend heavily on freeway traffic.

Both work very well with children, but in different ways. Los Angeles has more to do: Universal Studios, Magic Mountain, the space shuttle at the California Science Center, the dinosaurs and the La Brea Tar Pits, plus the zoo and the Long Beach aquarium. Each of those outings costs time in traffic.

Newport is the easier base. It has shallow harbour beaches, the ferris wheel at the Balboa Fun Zone, the little car ferry and tide pools at Crystal Cove, and Disneyland and Knott's are about half an hour inland.

You will want a car in either place, and in both, freeways and parking shape the day. Los Angeles at least has Metro rail lines linking downtown with Hollywood, Pasadena, Long Beach and Santa Monica, but its distances are far greater. In Newport, the flat Balboa Peninsula, the boardwalk and Balboa Island, joined by the little ferry, can be done on foot or by bike.

Los Angeles shopping has range and character. Rodeo Drive has the luxury houses, Melrose has streetwear and vintage, and Abbot Kinney has independent shops. Silver Lake is good for records and design, and the Rose Bowl flea market is a serious hunt for vintage.

Newport is mostly about polished malls. There is an open-air centre above the harbour and a huge luxury mall ten minutes away in Costa Mesa, plus boutiques in Corona del Mar and surf shops on the peninsula. Markets and independent design are thin.

Neither is a budget destination, but Los Angeles leaves you more ways to save. Taco trucks, Koreatown and the San Gabriel Valley feed you well for little, and the beaches, Griffith Observatory and the Getty's collections cost nothing.

Newport charges resort prices for its harbour and beachfront hotels and adds a premium for the view at dinner. Cheap eating mostly means burgers and tacos, and the main way to save is to sleep inland in Costa Mesa or Irvine.

Evenings out are where Los Angeles pulls far ahead, because it has a full stage calendar of its own while Newport mostly borrows one. The Philharmonic plays at Disney Concert Hall and moves to the Hollywood Bowl in summer, and LA Opera performs at the Music Center. Below that come rock rooms on the Sunset Strip, small band clubs in Echo Park, Hollywood's comedy and improv theatres and jazz in Leimert Park.

In Newport itself there are summer concerts by the water and bands in the beach bars. Ten minutes away in Costa Mesa, the Segerstrom Center brings touring musicals, ballet and the Pacific Symphony, and South Coast Repertory stages new plays. For opera and big concerts, you still have to drive north.

The Los Angeles draw is Koreatown's bathhouses, with hot and cold pools, scrubs and heated floors, many of them open late or round the clock. Yoga studios and Beverly Hills spas round it out, though the city itself wears you down.

Newport has no bathhouses or springs. Its calm comes from the pace: walks on the bluffs, coffee by the harbour, sunsets over the water and the spas of the hillside resorts.