Moab or Santa Monica?

Moab has nowhere to spend a beach day. The best it can do is a cooling dip in Mill Creek's shallow pools, at Ken's Lake or from a sandbar on a fast, cold Colorado, and for most visitors the motel pool does the job.

Santa Monica is a real beach town, with a very wide strip of pale sand centred on the pier and prettier, quieter coves to the north at Zuma, El Matador and Point Dume. The drawbacks are cool Pacific water and grey early-summer mornings, and you should swim a little way from the pier.

Moab's food is there to refuel hikers: burgers, tacos, pizza, brewpubs and a few Southwestern dinner places along Main Street. Expect queues in spring and autumn and less choice in winter, and Utah's alcohol rules make a glass of wine with dinner more formal than you might expect.

Santa Monica eats much better. Its cooking is built around the Wednesday farmers market, with seasonal Californian dishes, seafood, brunch and good Italian and Japanese restaurants on Main Street and Montana Avenue. What it shares with Moab is the lack of a cuisine of its own, and the cheap immigrant food Los Angeles is known for is a long drive east.

Moab town itself fills a morning at most, mostly at the small Museum of Moab. Its depth is out in the cliffs: Ancestral Puebloan and Fremont petroglyphs along Potash Road and Kane Creek, the Sego Canyon panels and dinosaur trackways. These reward curiosity more than a love of museums.

Santa Monica is not a sightseeing town either, but it offers more. There is the pier with its carousel and the end of Route 66, the galleries of Bergamot Station and some Spanish Colonial Revival and Art Deco buildings. The Getty Center and Getty Villa, a short drive away, raise it to a different level.

Moab's nights are short. A couple of brewpubs fill with bikers and rafters, the town is mostly asleep by eleven, and the real attraction after dark is a sky full of stars.

Santa Monica has more going on, with wine bars and ocean-view rooftops around the Third Street Promenade, pubs on Main Street and a looser crowd in Venice. It is still a place for drinks rather than dancing, though. A club night means a long ride to Hollywood or West Hollywood.

Both make good outdoor bases, but Moab is one of the finest in the world. Arches begins minutes from town, and Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point look over the Colorado and Green river canyons less than an hour away. Add the Slickrock Trail, the Whole Enchilada descent from the La Sals, rafting, canyoneering and climbing at Wall Street, and a week is easily filled.

Santa Monica's outdoors is gentler and open all year. It has chaparral and oak-canyon trails in Topanga and Temescal Canyon with views across the bay, the 35km beach path, surf lessons and winter whale-watching. Here outdoor time goes alongside a beach trip rather than being the point of it.

From Moab, a day out mostly means more landscape. The nearby towns of Green River, Monticello and Bluff are small. The most rewarding cultural outing is into Ancestral Puebloan country, to Edge of the Cedars in Blanding and the stone towers of Hovenweep.

Santa Monica has far more range. Malibu is next door, Santa Barbara's mission and wine country or Laguna Beach's coves are about two hours away, and Catalina is a ferry ride off. Within Los Angeles there are the Huntington, Hollywood and downtown. Traffic, rather than distance, sets the limit.

Moab suits active school-age children who love scrambling on rock. There are short walks to Sand Dune Arch, dinosaur tracks, gentle float trips on the river and Junior Ranger programmes. Summer heat, unfenced drops and long hours in the car make it a poor fit for toddlers.

Santa Monica is simpler at any age. It has lifeguarded sand, the pier's Ferris wheel, carousel and small aquarium, beachfront playgrounds and a flat bike path. A theme-park day at Universal or Disneyland takes up most of the day, and visible homelessness downtown bothers some parents.

Both have walkable centres, but that is where the likeness ends. Moab has a short Main Street and a paved bike path to the Arches entrance. Everything else needs a car, ideally a high-clearance one, or an outfitter's shuttle.

Santa Monica adds city buses, the beach path for cycling and the E Line light rail to Culver City, Exposition Park and downtown Los Angeles. The Getty, Hollywood and the Malibu canyons still mean ride-hailing or a hire car on busy freeways.

Moab's shops serve the trail. They sell bike, climbing and camping gear, geodes and fossils, and there are a few galleries with Navajo jewellery and weavings.

Santa Monica offers proper shopping: chains and flagships on the Third Street Promenade, boutiques on Montana Avenue, surf shops on Main Street and design-led stores on Abbot Kinney in Venice. Rodeo Drive is a short drive away.

Neither is cheap, but Moab is easier on the budget. Motels charge resort prices for simple rooms in spring and autumn, and car hire and guided rafting or jeep trips add up. On the other hand, one park entry covers a week, the hikes are free, public campgrounds and dispersed camping cost little, and winter is much cheaper.

Santa Monica is expensive even by Californian standards, with costly oceanfront hotels, high restaurant bills and parking on top. The free beach and trails and the cheap buses help, and staying inland lowers the bill, but nothing matches pitching a tent outside Moab.

Moab's one real highlight is the Moab Music Festival at the end of summer, with chamber concerts held in canyon grottoes reached by boat. The rest of the year there is little more than a weekend band in a brewpub.

Santa Monica has a modest but steady stage, with the Broad Stage, small playhouses, intimate folk rooms and free summer concerts on the pier. For something grander, the Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall are across town.

Moab is made for exertion, with early starts, long hot days and a few massage studios for sore legs. Its restful side is stillness: dark skies and red cliffs at sunset, best enjoyed from a ranch or a cabin in the La Sal Mountains.

Santa Monica is the easier place to unwind, with yoga on the sand, polished hotel spas, plenty of day spas and an unhurried morning walk by the ocean. Neither has thermal springs or a bathing tradition, so in both places the rest is something you make for yourself.