Napa or Phoenix?

Neither city offers a beach vacation, and both send swimmers to reservoirs or pools. Napa's lake is Lake Berryessa in the eastern hills, and the nearest coast at Bodega Bay is cold, rough and more than an hour away. Phoenix has Saguaro and Canyon lakes among bare desert cliffs, plus the summer custom of tubing down the Salt River.

The pools differ too. Phoenix resorts build theirs with slides and lazy rivers for the hot months, while Napa's are calmer hotel and spa pools.

For food, Napa is clearly ahead, because eating there grows out of the wine. Tasting rooms line Highway 29 and the Silverado Trail, Yountville and St Helena have some of the most celebrated restaurants in the country, and the Oxbow Public Market fills a hall downtown. Cheap eating is its weak point, and that mostly means the taquerias.

In Phoenix the best food is the cheap kind: Sonoran carne asada, paper-thin flour tortillas and bacon-wrapped hot dogs from evening carts, along with good wood-fired pizza. Beyond that the restaurant scene is dependable rather than memorable, and it is spread out enough that a good dinner usually means a drive.

Phoenix has much more to see, though nearly all of it is inside museums: the Heard Museum's Native American collections, the Musical Instrument Museum and Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West. The Hohokam ruins at Pueblo Grande add older history, but each sight is a separate drive.

Napa offers a pleasant hour or two rather than a full programme. There are the 1880 Opera House and the Victorian fronts on First Street, the di Rosa art estate in Carneros and the stone wineries up the valley. A visitor after landmarks will be done within a day.

Phoenix gives a real choice of nights out. There are the clubs and rooftop bars of Old Town Scottsdale, the student bars on Tempe's Mill Avenue, and craft beer and cocktails around Roosevelt Row. The districts are far apart, so you pick one and take a ride home.

A Napa evening is dinner and perhaps a glass at a downtown wine bar. The town is quiet by late evening and has no clubs, so anyone wanting more goes to San Francisco, an hour away.

The landscape is a draw in both places, but Phoenix's outdoors are wilder and more dramatic. You can scramble up Camelback Mountain and Piestewa Peak, walk through saguaro forest in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve or explore the huge South Mountain park, and Sedona's red rock is two hours north. Its season runs from October to April.

Napa's nature is gentler and farmed: a vineyard valley between two ranges, seen from a dawn balloon or by bike on the valley trail. Bothe-Napa Valley has redwood groves, and the climb up Mount St Helena gives wide views.

Napa is much better placed for days out. Yountville, St Helena and Calistoga are minutes up the road, and Sonoma's plaza and mission are about half an hour away. The Russian River and Dry Creek valleys make a different wine day, and San Francisco is an hour away by car or by ferry from Vallejo.

Phoenix's outings are fewer and longer. To the north are Jerome on its hillside, Prescott's saloon street, Montezuma Castle and Sedona, and to the south are Tucson and Mission San Xavier del Bac. The Grand Canyon is too far for a comfortable day.

Phoenix is much easier with children, as long as you come between autumn and spring. It has the zoo, the Scottsdale aquarium, the Arizona Science Center, a children's museum, water parks and spring training baseball in March. Expect long drives between them, and summer heat that is risky for young children.

Napa is built for adults, and tasting rooms bore children. The animal park in Vallejo, the geyser near Calistoga and hotel pools can fill a short stay, but not much more.

Both cities are hard to see without a car, but in different ways. Napa town is small and easy to walk. The difficulty is the valley: some 50km of wineries, buses too infrequent to plan around, and tastings that do not mix with driving, so many visitors hire a driver or join a tour.

Phoenix is a vast flat grid where even the sights are far apart. The light rail line between the airport, downtown and Tempe helps within that corridor, and roads and parking are easy with a rental car.

Phoenix has more shopping. Luxury malls in Scottsdale and near the Biltmore carry the main brands, and Old Town Scottsdale adds Western wear and galleries. The real local buy is Native American work: Navajo and Zuni silver and turquoise, Hopi katsina carvings, pottery and rugs, best bought from museum shops and reputable galleries.

In Napa the main purchase is wine shipped home from the cellars. The market hall sells food gifts and kitchenware, and St Helena has cookware and design shops. Beyond an outlet mall, there is little fashion.

Phoenix is a noticeably cheaper trip. Outside the busy January to April season, resort rooms drop sharply. Chain hotels by the freeways are good value all year, Sonoran Mexican food is cheap and hiking costs nothing. The rental car is the main extra cost.

Napa is among the most expensive places to stay in the country, and tastings, the celebrated restaurants and a driver for the day all add up. Taquerias, the market hall and chain hotels further south help, but it never becomes a budget trip.

Phoenix has the full set of institutions you would expect in a large city. There are the Phoenix Symphony, Arizona Opera and Ballet Arizona, touring Broadway shows at ASU Gammage (a round hall by Frank Lloyd Wright) and an intimate concert hall at the Musical Instrument Museum. The season runs from autumn to spring.

Napa has its old Opera House and an Art Deco theatre for touring acts. In summer a classical festival plays in winery venues, and a big rock festival comes in late spring. For serious opera or an orchestra you need an evening in San Francisco.

Napa is the better place to rest. Calistoga's volcanic mud baths and mineral pools, part of a hot spring tradition dating back to the nineteenth century, are something Phoenix has no equivalent of. The valley's whole day is slow by design, from late breakfasts to long lunches.

Phoenix's strength is the large desert resort along Camelback Mountain and in north Scottsdale, with spas using sage, clay and agave and winter sun by the pool. Outside the resorts it is a sprawling car city, with no baths to visit.