Mammoth Lakes or Monterey?

Neither is a beach destination, but Monterey at least has a real shoreline. Del Monte Beach, the white sand at Carmel and the Asilomar dunes are lovely for walking and picnics. The bay stays chilly and rip currents are common, so swimming is mostly for wetsuited kayakers and divers.

Mammoth Lakes is far from any sea. Its swimming is a brief, cold dip in Horseshoe Lake or the slightly warmer Crowley Lake in July and August, and most people sit on the shore instead.

Monterey eats better because it has local ingredients to cook with. There is squid, Dungeness crab and sand dabs from the bay, vegetables from the Salinas Valley, and Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Carmel Valley and the Santa Lucia Highlands. Skip the bread-bowl chowder on the wharf and eat in Old Monterey or Carmel instead.

Mammoth Lakes serves filling ski-town food: big breakfasts, burgers, steaks and a few more ambitious kitchens in the Village, washed down with beer brewed in town. It is a good meal after a day outside, not a reason to go.

Monterey wins this easily. Its State Historic Park keeps the Custom House, Colton Hall and a walkable group of adobes from the Spanish and Mexican capital. The Royal Presidio Chapel and the Carmel Mission are close by, and Cannery Row ties the town to Steinbeck.

Mammoth Lakes grew from a mining camp into a ski resort, and its modern lodges and condominiums have little history to show. A small museum in a log cabin is close to the whole list.

Both towns are quiet after dark and neither has clubs, but the evenings feel different. In Mammoth Lakes, going out follows the snow. The Village and the bars near the lifts fill with après-ski crowds, and long ski weekends can run late, but the town falls silent the rest of the year. In Monterey the evening is dinner and then perhaps a glass in the wine bars and brewpubs of Alvarado Street, a steadier, low-key routine through the year.

Both are superb, but Mammoth Lakes goes further. A huge ski mountain stands over town and becomes a bike park in summer. The Lakes Basin, the Ansel Adams and John Muir wildernesses, Devils Postpile, the tufa towers of Mono Lake and Tuolumne Meadows are all within reach. Living at about 2,400m means thin air and strong sun.

Monterey's nature is coastal and full of animals: otters in the kelp, sea lions on the wharf, and whales over the deep submarine canyon. Point Lobos and the Big Sur cliffs are just south. It is gentler and easier to reach from town, but less varied than Mammoth's high country.

Monterey has far more within easy reach. Pacific Grove is next door and Carmel is fifteen minutes away. Steinbeck's Salinas, the mission at San Juan Bautista and Santa Cruz's boardwalk make easy half-days or full days.

From Mammoth Lakes, places are spread thinly along the highway. Bodie's ghost town and the Manzanar internment camp are each well over an hour's drive, and Mono Lake and June Lake are closer. Most outings head into the mountains rather than to other towns.

Monterey has the edge, mostly because of its aquarium, with its kelp forest, otters and hands-on galleries. Tide pools, whale-watching boats and Dennis the Menace Park fill other days, and there is always something to do in bad weather.

Mammoth Lakes is excellent for outdoorsy families, with a big ski school, a tubing hill, rowing boats and trout fishing in the Lakes Basin. But there is nothing indoors for children, and the altitude can tire small children for the first day or two.

In both, a car does most of the work beyond town, but they differ in how you get around within it. Mammoth Lakes is spread along a few roads. Its free winter shuttles and the Village gondola make a ski trip possible without driving, and a summer trolley and the Reds Meadow shuttle cover the lakes. Monterey has a flat, walkable waterfront, and the coastal trail joins the wharf, Cannery Row, the aquarium and Pacific Grove on foot or by bike.

Monterey offers the better browsing, though mostly next door rather than in town. Carmel's small streets of galleries and independent boutiques and Pacific Grove's antique shops make a pleasant afternoon, while Cannery Row is mostly taffy and otter souvenirs. Mammoth Lakes is for buying gear: good ski, climbing and fly-fishing shops, landscape photography galleries and little else.

Both are expensive, though they are dearest at opposite times of year. Mammoth Lakes is costliest in the peak ski weeks, when lift tickets, rentals and lodging all climb. Summer and the shoulder months are kinder, and condominium kitchens help. Monterey peaks on summer weekends and during the Pebble Beach car week in August. Budget travellers stay in the motels of Seaside or Marina, come midweek or in winter, and spend their days on the free coastal trail and tide pools.

Monterey has the deeper musical history. Its jazz festival has run every September since 1958 on the fairgrounds that hosted the 1967 Pop Festival, and summer brings the Carmel Bach Festival and plays in the open-air Forest Theater. Outside the festivals there is the symphony and the restored Golden State Theatre.

Mammoth Lakes has a summer jazz festival too, plus chamber music in mountain meadows and a community theatre on the college campus. These are pleasant local evenings, not a reason to plan a trip.

Mammoth Lakes has something Monterey lacks: natural hot springs. You soak in simple pools out in the sagebrush with the Sierra across the valley, and lodge spas and hot tubs ease skiers' legs. Monterey's calm comes from its pace instead: fog lifting off the bay, shore walks in Pacific Grove, and vineyard resort spas in sunnier Carmel Valley, with no bathing culture to speak of.