Napa or Newport Beach?

For a beach this is not a contest. Napa is an inland valley, and the nearest shore, around Bodega Bay, is over an hour's drive away and too cold and rough for swimming. In summer the alternatives are Lake Berryessa in the eastern hills or the resort pool.

Newport Beach has ten kilometres of sand, with surf breaks by the piers, the famous and dangerous Wedge, sheltered coves at Corona del Mar and quiet harbour strips where toddlers can paddle. The Pacific here is cool rather than warm, so plenty of people swim in wetsuits, but beach life is the whole point of the town.

Napa is one of America's great places to eat and drink, and the wine is why most visitors come. Cabernet estates line the valley, Carneros is known for Pinot Noir and sparkling wine, and Yountville and St Helena have restaurants of national reputation, cooking with produce from the surrounding farms. Napa is weak only at the cheap end, where the taquerias do most of the work.

Newport eats well in a more ordinary way, with seafood dining rooms facing the harbour, fish tacos on the peninsula and frozen bananas on Balboa Island. Its real asset for food lovers is Little Saigon, twenty minutes inland, which gives it a range of Vietnamese cooking that the Napa Valley cannot match.

Neither town gives you much sightseeing, and in both you will run out within a day. What they have is different, though. Napa's sights belong to its wine-country past: the Victorian buildings on First Street, the restored 1880 opera house, the nineteenth century stone wineries up the valley, plus contemporary Northern California art at di Rosa in Carneros.

Newport's sights belong to the seaside resort: the Balboa Pavilion of 1905, the little island ferry and Schindler's Lovell Beach House, an early modernist landmark that architecture fans travel to see. The area's serious art museum is in neighbouring Costa Mesa.

Newport Beach gives you more of a night out, though neither town has clubs. Near the Newport and Balboa piers, beach and dive bars fill up with a young local crowd on summer weekends, while the harbour's wine bars and hotel lounges suit a dressier, earlier evening.

In Napa the evening usually ends with dinner and maybe a glass at a downtown wine bar, and the valley is quiet by late evening. For anything bigger you go to San Francisco, while from Newport you would head to Costa Mesa or Los Angeles.

Both have good outdoor time, but the settings are very different. Napa's landscape is farmed hills and vineyards: you can watch hot-air balloons rise over the valley at dawn, cycle the flat trail between the vines, walk among the redwoods at Bothe-Napa Valley State Park or climb Mount St Helena for the view. Summer heat pushes all of this into the early morning.

Newport's outdoors is about the sea. Upper Newport Bay draws herons and migrating shorebirds in winter, Crystal Cove has bluff and canyon trails, and the harbour is good for kayaking and sailing. Whale-watching boats go out all year, for grey whales in winter and blue whales in summer.

Napa has the better choice of outings, and most of them are close at hand. Yountville and St Helena are a short drive up the valley and Calistoga about forty minutes, while Sonoma's mission and plaza are half an hour over the Carneros hills. Healdsburg and the Russian River and Dry Creek valleys make a second wine country about an hour away. San Francisco is an hour by car or by ferry from Vallejo, and Sacramento's old town and state capitol lie a little further east.

Newport's outings follow the Southern California coast. Laguna Beach's galleries and coves are twenty minutes away, the mission at San Juan Capistrano is close by, and a ferry runs from Balboa to Avalon on Catalina Island. Los Angeles or San Diego make a long day. Nearly all of these trips are on freeways, where rush hour can double the journey.

Children are much better served in Newport Beach. It has shallow harbour beaches, the ferris wheel and arcades of the Balboa Fun Zone, the car ferry to Balboa Island, tide pools at Crystal Cove and whale-watching boats. Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are about half an hour inland, which is why so many families stay here by the sea.

Napa is designed for adults, and an afternoon in tasting rooms is no fun for a child. The animal park in Vallejo, the geyser near Calistoga and the hotel pools fill a day or two, but the drives and the summer heat wear on younger children.

Both are car places, each with one small walkable area. In Napa that area is downtown, where the riverfront, the market hall and most restaurants are close together. The wineries, though, are spread over some 50km of valley, and since tasting and driving don't mix, many visitors hire a driver or book a tour.

In Newport you can walk or cycle the flat Balboa Peninsula along its boardwalk and wander Balboa Island, with the little ferry linking the two. Everything further away means freeways, and beach parking on summer weekends is hard to find.

Newport Beach is the better place for shopping, especially fashion. There are designer names and department stores at the open-air centre above the harbour, and ten minutes away in Costa Mesa is one of the country's largest luxury malls. Smaller boutiques line Coast Highway in Corona del Mar, and the peninsula is full of surf shops.

In Napa, shopping mostly means wine, often shipped home by the case from the cellars where you tasted it. For the rest, there are food gifts and olive oil at the Oxbow Public Market, cookware and design shops on St Helena's main street, and an outlet mall at the edge of town.

Both are expensive by any measure, and neither can be done cheaply. Napa's costs come from luxury rooms, tasting fees at the famous estates, special-occasion restaurants and the driver you need on tasting days, and weekends and harvest are the dearest times. Staying in chain hotels further south and eating at the taquerias helps.

In Newport the money goes on summer resort rates, meals with a view, and the car, fuel and parking you can't do without. Staying inland in Costa Mesa or Irvine saves a little.

Newport Beach has easier access to serious performances, thanks to the Segerstrom Center ten minutes away in Costa Mesa. It hosts touring Broadway musicals and ballet, and it is home to the Pacific Symphony. South Coast Repertory next door is a respected theatre company. In Newport itself there are summer concerts by the water.

Napa has more than its size suggests: shows at the 1880 opera house, touring bands at a restored Art Deco theatre, a summer classical festival in winery venues and a large rock festival at the fairgrounds in late spring. For opera or an orchestra outside those times, you drive to San Francisco.

Napa is the better place to unwind. Calistoga has been a hot spring town since the nineteenth century, and a mud bath or mineral soak there is the traditional end to a day of tastings. The resorts in Carneros and the hills have large spas, and the whole day here is slow, from a late breakfast to a long lunch on a terrace.

Newport has no thermal springs or bathhouses, so relaxing there means walks on the bluffs, a resort spa or yoga around Corona del Mar, and sunset over the water. In both places summer weekends are crowded, so go on weekdays or in the quieter months.