Mammoth Lakes or Newport Beach?

Mammoth Lakes is far from the sea and has no beach life at all. In July and August a few people take a chilly swim in Horseshoe Lake or the slightly warmer Crowley Lake, and Hot Creek is closed to bathers.

Newport Beach has ten kilometres of sand along the Balboa Peninsula, with surf breaks by the piers, quieter coves at Corona del Mar and sheltered harbour beaches for small children. The Pacific stays cool, so this is a beach for wetsuits, boogie boards and volleyball rather than long warm swims.

Neither town has a cuisine of its own, and both charge resort prices, but Newport Beach eats better. In Mammoth Lakes the food is for after a day on the mountain: big breakfasts, burgers, pizza, steakhouses and beer brewed in town. Some kitchens cut back in the quiet months.

Newport adds waterfront seafood with harbour views, fish tacos by the sand and the frozen bananas of Balboa Island. Better still, it has Costa Mesa next door and Little Saigon's Vietnamese cooking about twenty minutes inland.

Neither town is a sightseeing destination. Mammoth Lakes has very little beyond its small history museum in a log cabin, and the town is mostly lodges and condominiums.

Newport has a bit more to show. There is the Balboa Pavilion of 1905, the little island ferry, Schindler's modernist Lovell Beach House and the gardens of Sherman Library, and the area's serious art museum is next door in Costa Mesa.

Newport Beach has the livelier evenings, though it is still no clubbing town. The dive bars by the Newport and Balboa piers fill with a young crowd on summer weekends, and the harbour wine bars and hotel lounges suit an earlier, dressier night.

In Mammoth Lakes, going out means après-ski in the Village and a few brewery taprooms. It can run late on long winter weekends, but on most other nights the town is asleep before midnight.

Mammoth Lakes is the clear choice here. Mammoth Mountain gives months of skiing and then a summer bike park, and the Lakes Basin opens granite-ringed lakes just above town. Beyond them lie Devils Postpile, Rainbow Falls, the tufa towers of Mono Lake and, once Tioga Pass opens, Tuolumne Meadows.

Newport's nature is coastal and gentler. The herons and shorebirds of Upper Newport Bay, the bluff and canyon trails of Crystal Cove and the whale-watching boats from the harbour make good half-days, but there is nothing on Mammoth's scale.

From Mammoth Lakes there are only a few outings, spread out along one highway below the Sierra. The best are the ghost town of Bodie, the Manzanar historic site and the small town of Bishop. Most other excursions go into the mountains rather than to other towns, and Yosemite Valley is too far for a comfortable day at any time of year.

Newport has much more within reach. Laguna Beach and Mission San Juan Capistrano are each half an hour or less away, a ferry from Balboa goes to Catalina Island, and Los Angeles and San Diego are both easy day trips. The price is freeway traffic.

Newport Beach is the easier place with children. There is shallow water in the harbour, the Fun Zone's ferris wheel and the car ferry to Balboa Island, and Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are about half an hour inland.

Mammoth Lakes suits outdoorsy families well. It has a big ski school, a tubing hill, and rowing boats and trout fishing in the Lakes Basin. However, it has nothing indoors for a snowbound day, and the altitude can tire young children at first.

Both places really need a car, but Mammoth Lakes manages better without one. In winter free shuttles and the gondola from the Village link the lodging to the lifts, so a ski trip can be done car-free. In summer a trolley runs to the Lakes Basin and a shuttle goes into Reds Meadow.

In Newport the buses are slow and infrequent, and beach parking is hard to find on summer weekends. Only the flat Balboa Peninsula and Balboa Island are easy on foot or by bike.

Newport Beach is made for shoppers. It has designer names in the open-air centre above the harbour, one of the country's largest luxury malls ten minutes away in Costa Mesa, and boutiques along Coast Highway in Corona del Mar.

Mammoth Lakes sells what people need for the mountains: ski, climbing and fly-fishing gear, plus landscape photography and T-shirts in the Village.

Both are expensive, and neither suits a tight budget, but the costs come in different ways. Mammoth Lakes is at its dearest in the peak ski weeks, when lift tickets, rental and lodging all go up together. Summer days on the trails and lakes cost little, and a condominium kitchen helps.

Newport stays pricey all year and peaks in summer. Car hire, fuel and parking add to the bill, and staying inland in Costa Mesa or Irvine is the usual way to save.

Newport Beach has far more on stage, thanks to its neighbour. Ten minutes away in Costa Mesa, the Segerstrom Center for the Arts stages touring musicals, ballet and the Pacific Symphony, and South Coast Repertory puts on new American plays.

Mammoth Lakes has a community theatre on the college campus and, in summer, a long-running jazz festival and chamber concerts in mountain meadows. These are pleasant evenings, but not a reason to plan a trip.

The two are fairly close, and Mammoth Lakes has a slight edge thanks to its volcanic ground. Soaking in a primitive hot spring out in the sagebrush with the Sierra across the valley is something Newport cannot offer, and the lodge spas look after tired ski legs.

Newport has no thermal springs. Instead it offers resort spas on the hills, yoga studios, bluff walks and sunsets over the harbour, best enjoyed outside the crowded summer weekends.