Mammoth Lakes or San Jose?

Neither is a beach destination, but San Jose at least has a real shore within reach. Santa Cruz, Capitola and the sheltered coves of northern Monterey Bay are about 45 minutes over the mountains, with sand and a proper surf-town feel. The water is chilly enough that most people wear wetsuits or stay on the sand.

From Mammoth Lakes the nearest thing is a lake shore. In high summer you can take a brief, cold swim at Horseshoe Lake or the warmer Crowley Lake, and the scalding springs at Hot Creek are off limits for bathing.

San Jose is the better place to eat, provided you are willing to drive for it. Its large Vietnamese community makes Little Saigon a destination for pho and banh mi. Add serious taquerias, Indian and Korean kitchens towards Santa Clara, and long-running family places in Japantown.

Mammoth Lakes serves ski-town food: big breakfasts, burgers, steaks and beer brewed in town. It is filling after a day outside, but there is no local cooking and little variety, and some kitchens cut back in the quiet seasons.

San Jose has much more to see, though it is a city of curiosities rather than grand heritage. You can explore the maze of stairways in the Winchester Mystery House, the antiquities at the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, Mission Santa Clara and the Computer History Museum.

Mammoth Lakes is a town of modern lodges and condominiums, and its small log-cabin museum on mining and settlers is close to the full list of sights in town.

San Jose gives you more of a night out. You can start among the beer halls and covered market of San Pedro Square before an arena game, then move on to the cocktail bars, dive bars and weekend dance clubs of SoFA along South First Street. It is still a modest scene, and big nights mean going to San Francisco.

In Mammoth Lakes, going out is après-ski in the Village and a few brewery taprooms. Outside the ski season the town is asleep well before midnight.

This is where Mammoth Lakes is far stronger. The ski mountain rises right above town and becomes a bike park in summer, and the Lakes Basin, the Ansel Adams and John Muir wildernesses and the Reds Meadow valley all start within minutes. Further out are the tufa towers of Mono Lake, Convict Lake and Tuolumne Meadows. At 2,400m the air is thin and the sun is strong.

San Jose's outdoors are gentler and further apart. Redwood groves at Big Basin and Henry Cowell, foothill walks at Alum Rock, sea otters in Monterey Bay and the headlands of Point Lobos all make good days out, but each one starts with a drive.

San Jose is one of the best-placed bases in California for day trips. San Francisco is about an hour away by Caltrain, and Stanford, Berkeley, the Santa Cruz boardwalk, Monterey's Cannery Row and Carmel are all easy outings. Napa and Sonoma are within about two hours.

Mammoth Lakes has a few good stops strung out along one highway. The best is the gold-rush ghost town of Bodie, along with the Manzanar internment camp and small Bishop. In winter the Sierra passes close, which shortens the list further.

San Jose has the slight advantage, mostly because it has plenty for a bad-weather day. Options include the Great America theme park, the small Happy Hollow zoo, a children's discovery museum and an IMAX dome, with the Monterey Bay Aquarium further afield. The catch is hours in the car.

Mammoth Lakes is better for outdoor families. It has a big ski school, a tubing hill, and rowing boats and trout fishing in summer. It has nothing indoors for children, though, and the altitude can tire the youngest for a day or two.

Mammoth Lakes is the easier of the two to manage without a car, at least within town. In winter, free shuttles run to the lift bases and a gondola rises from the compact Village. In summer, a trolley serves the Lakes Basin and a shuttle runs into Reds Meadow. You still need a car for the wider Eastern Sierra.

San Jose has a walkable downtown, light rail and Caltrain up the Peninsula. Beyond those lines, buses are slow, the sights are spread across the valley, and rush-hour freeways shape the day.

Mammoth Lakes sells what you need for the mountains and very little else. Its ski, snowboard, climbing and fly-fishing shops are good, and beyond them there are galleries of landscape photography and the usual souvenirs around the Village. There are no fashion streets or markets.

If shopping is part of the trip, San Jose has far more to offer. On the west side, a very large regional mall and the open-air boutique street beside it put most international and luxury brands in one place. The main streets of Willow Glen and Los Gatos and the Asian plazas add smaller places to browse.

Both are expensive, but the costs come from different places. In Mammoth Lakes the winter is the expensive part, with lift tickets, rental and peak-week lodging all costly. Summer hiking and scenic drives cost little, and a condominium kitchen trims the food bill.

In San Jose the pressure comes from business-priced hotels, which ease at weekends, and from car hire, fuel and parking. Casual Vietnamese and Mexican eateries are the reliable way to save.

San Jose has a proper arts calendar. Opera San José performs in the restored California Theatre, the symphony and touring Broadway shows share the Center for the Performing Arts, and the arena brings large concerts. Weeknights can still be thin.

Mammoth Lakes offers community theatre in a small campus playhouse and, in summer, a jazz festival and chamber music with the mountains as a backdrop.

Mammoth Lakes is the more restful place. Its volcanic ground feeds hot springs in the sagebrush, simple undeveloped pools reached by dirt road, and the lodges have spas and hot tubs for after skiing. Away from the busiest weeks the whole town runs at a slow pace.

San Jose's calm comes in pockets. You can try the Korean-style bathhouses in the valley towns, spend an hour in the Hakone or Kelley Park Japanese gardens, or walk the leafy streets of Saratoga.