Moab or Steamboat Springs?

Neither town is anywhere near a coast, so a beach trip is not possible in either. What differs is how you cool off. In Moab's desert heat it is Mill Creek's shallow pools, Ken's Lake or the cold, silty Colorado. In Steamboat it is a chilly swim in Steamboat Lake or Stagecoach, or a lazy tube down the Yampa through town in July and August.

Both towns feed people who have spent the day outdoors, and neither has a local cuisine to seek out. Steamboat has the edge in range, with steakhouses serving Colorado lamb and beef along Lincoln Avenue and at the ski base, plus a few more ambitious kitchens.

Moab's Main Street leans more on burgers, tacos and pizza, with a few Southwestern dinner places. Choice thins in winter, and Utah's alcohol rules make a drink with dinner more formal than many visitors expect.

Neither town will keep a museum-lover busy for more than a morning, but the history differs in kind. Moab's depth lies just outside town, in the Ancestral Puebloan and Fremont rock art along Potash Road and Kane Creek and in the dinosaur trackways. Steamboat's story is ranching and skiing, which you can read in the western storefronts of Lincoln Avenue, the Tread of Pioneers Museum and Howelsen Hill, one of the oldest ski areas in North America.

Steamboat has more going on in the evening, at least in ski season. Après-ski starts at the bars at the gondola base when the lifts close, then moves downtown to the saloons and brewpubs of Lincoln Avenue, some of which stay busy into the late evening.

Moab's brewpubs fill with bikers and rafters, but most visitors go to bed early for a dawn hike and the town is quiet by eleven. Neither town has clubs. Moab's consolation is an exceptionally dark sky full of stars.

Both are first-rate outdoor bases, but Moab's landscape is the rarer of the two. Arches starts a few minutes from town and Canyonlands and Dead Horse Point are less than an hour away. The Slickrock Trail and the Whole Enchilada make Moab a world centre for mountain biking, and there is rafting, canyoneering and climbing as well.

Steamboat has seasons Moab cannot match. In winter there is Champagne Powder and tree skiing through aspen glades. In summer there are the trails on Emerald Mountain, Fish Creek Falls, the alpine lakes of the Mount Zirkel Wilderness and fly fishing on the Yampa. Go to Moab for desert rock and to Steamboat for snow and forested peaks.

Both towns are remote, and from either one the best outings are into the landscape rather than to other towns. Moab has rather more worth the drive: the old stone houses of Bluff by the San Juan, the museum and ruins at Edge of the Cedars in Blanding, and the Hovenweep towers make a real cultural day out.

From Steamboat, the nearby ranching towns are good for a coffee stop and little more. Vail or Grand Lake take about two hours on mountain roads, and Denver is further still.

Steamboat has long set out to attract families, and it shows. It has a strong ski school with gentle beginner terrain, Howelsen Hill for first turns, and slides and a climbing wall at Old Town Hot Springs. In summer you can add tubing, the gondola and the rodeo. The altitude may tire small children for a day or two.

Moab works for school-age children who love scrambling on rock. Sand Dune Arch, dinosaur tracks and gentle river floats all go down well. But summer heat, long unfenced drops and hours in the car make it hard going with toddlers.

Steamboat is much easier to manage without a car. A town bus links the walkable downtown on Lincoln Avenue with the ski base, and many slopeside lodgings let skiers walk to the gondola. Strawberry Park, the lakes and the passes still need a car, with proper tyres in winter.

In Moab you get a walkable Main Street and a paved bike path to the Arches entrance, and that is about all. There is no useful public transport, the parks are spread out along long desert roads, and a high-clearance vehicle opens up much more of the backcountry.

Neither town is worth visiting for the shops, but Lincoln Avenue gives Steamboat the more pleasant hour. It has western-wear stores selling boots and hats, a few galleries and F.M. Light & Sons, a family outfitter in business since the early twentieth century. Moab's Main Street is more practical, with bike and climbing shops, rock shops selling geodes and fossils, and a few galleries with Navajo jewellery and weavings.

Neither town is cheap, but Moab is the easier one to do on less. Its motels charge resort prices in spring and autumn, but one park pass covers a whole week and there are public campgrounds and free dispersed camping all around. Winter is much cheaper.

Steamboat is expensive in every season. Ski season adds lift access, equipment hire and slopeside lodging, and Christmas and the spring school breaks are the costliest weeks of all. Summer and the shoulder seasons are gentler on the budget, and self-catering condos and free trails help.

Both towns rely on a summer festival, but Steamboat's offers more and runs longer. The Strings Music Festival brings chamber music, jazz and bluegrass to a pavilion on the edge of town through the warm months. There are also free concerts downtown and at the mountain base, and Perry-Mansfield, founded in 1913, stages student theatre and dance.

Moab has the Moab Music Festival at the end of summer, and its chamber concerts in canyon grottoes reached by boat are memorable. Outside the festival there is little beyond a weekend band in a brewpub.

This is where the two towns differ most. Steamboat is built on hot water: there are spring-fed pools in town at Old Town Hot Springs, and about 11km up a mountain road are the rock-lined pools of Strawberry Park, at their best on a snowy evening.

Moab has no hot springs worth the trip and only a few small massage studios, and days there are energetic rather than restful. Its calm is of another kind: quiet desert evenings and cliffs turning red at sunset.