Mammoth Lakes or Sonoma?

Neither town is a place to swim, and both sit far from any beach you would lie on. In Mammoth Lakes a swim means a brief, cold plunge into Horseshoe Lake or slightly warmer Crowley Lake in high summer, with mountain scenery all around.

Sonoma's options are a hotel pool or the gravel beaches of the Russian River, where the water is warm enough for a lazy afternoon. The dramatic coast at Bodega Bay is for looking at rather than swimming.

Food is where Sonoma clearly pulls ahead. Its wineries and tasting rooms around the plaza, Carneros Pinot Noir and old-vine Zinfandel, and seasonal cooking built on local cheese, olive oil and oysters make eating the main point of a visit.

Mammoth Lakes feeds you well after a day outdoors, with big breakfasts, burgers, steakhouses and local craft beer, but it has no cooking of its own. Meals there keep you going rather than being a reason to come.

Sonoma has a real, if compact, historic core. You can visit the plaza where the Bear Flag Revolt happened, the last of California's Franciscan missions, the adobe barracks and General Vallejo's house, and the ruins of Jack London's Wolf House are nearby. That is a good half day of history.

Mammoth Lakes offers little more than a log-cabin museum telling the mining story. Its nearest serious heritage sites, Bodie and Manzanar, are an hour or more away.

Neither is a place for a big night out, but Mammoth Lakes has more going on in season. After skiing, the Village and the bars by the lifts fill up, brewery taprooms stay busy, and long ski weekends can run late. Outside winter, though, the town goes to bed early.

In Sonoma the evening is dinner followed perhaps by a glass in a wine bar or saloon on the plaza. People who want more than that drive to Santa Rosa.

Mammoth Lakes is the reason many people visit the Eastern Sierra. It has one of North America's largest ski areas right above town, granite-ringed lakes, routes into the John Muir wilderness, Mono Lake's tufa towers, and in summer the drive over Tioga Pass to Tuolumne Meadows. The scale is high-altitude and wild.

Sonoma's landscape is softer: vineyards between two low ranges, oak woodland, redwood groves at Sugarloaf Ridge, quiet cycling roads and balloon flights at dawn. It is lovely in spring and at harvest, but it has nothing of Mammoth's drama.

Sonoma is much better placed for day trips. San Francisco is about an hour's drive, Napa, Yountville and St Helena are just over the hills, and Healdsburg, Petaluma and Sausalito are all easy outings. The weakness is that many of them are simply another wine town.

From Mammoth Lakes the stops along the highway are few and far apart. Bodie's ghost town and the Manzanar site deserve the drive, and most other excursions head into the mountains rather than to other towns.

Mammoth Lakes is the clear choice with children who like being outside. They get ski lessons, tubing, the summit gondola, the bike park, rowing boats and fishing in the Lakes Basin. The weak spots are a bad-weather day with no indoor attractions, and the altitude, which can tire young children at first.

Sonoma is safe and calm but made for wine tasting. Once the plaza playground, the miniature railway and the African wildlife park are done, a family is better off staying in San Francisco and visiting for the day.

Mammoth Lakes is easier to manage without a car than you might expect, at least for skiing. Free winter shuttles and the gondola from the Village reach the slopes, and a summer trolley and the Reds Meadow shuttle cover the main lake and valley trips. For the wider Sierra you still need to drive.

Sonoma's plaza and its tasting rooms are easy on foot, but the wineries, parks and coast are all spread out and the buses are of little use. That leaves you hiring a car, booking a driver or cycling the flat valley roads.

Sonoma gives you more to browse. Its plaza and arcades hold independent boutiques, kitchen shops and galleries, and you can buy wine, cheese and olive oil straight from the producers, with a farmers' market in summer.

In Mammoth Lakes shopping means gear: ski, climbing and fly-fishing shops, rental outlets, landscape photography and souvenirs in the Village.

Both are expensive, but Mammoth Lakes is a little easier on the budget, mainly outside winter. In summer the hiking, lakes and scenic drives cost almost nothing beyond a park pass, and a condominium kitchen cuts down on meals out. In winter, though, lift tickets and peak-week lodging make it very costly.

Sonoma has no cheap season to compare. Its few rooms are priced for wine-country weekends, and tasting fees and a driver add up over a few days. Many visitors on a budget stay in Santa Rosa or Petaluma instead.

Sonoma has more to attend, at least in summer. There are outdoor shows among the oaks of Jack London park, winery concerts and the 1930s plaza theatre, and touring orchestras play at the Green Music Center about half an hour away.

Mammoth Lakes has a community theatre on the college campus that runs through the year, plus a summer jazz festival and chamber concerts in mountain meadows. It is a pleasant evening out rather than a reason to travel.

The two are fairly level for relaxation, but they offer different things. In Mammoth Lakes the ritual is a soak in a primitive hot spring out in the sagebrush, reached by dirt road and with no facilities, followed by a lodge hot tub for sore ski legs.

Sonoma's mineral water at Boyes Hot Springs feeds a polished historic resort spa with day passes, and Calistoga's mud baths are within reach. Its quiet plaza mornings and shaded afternoons suit a couple who want comfort more than wild scenery.