Napa or Salt Lake City?

Neither city gives you a beach vacation, but the water you can reach is quite different. From Napa, the nearest sea is the cold, rough Pacific at Bodega Bay, more than an hour's drive away and better for looking at than swimming in. So summer swimming here means Lake Berryessa or a resort pool.

Salt Lake City has the odder experience. You can float without effort in the Great Salt Lake, though the muddy shore and brine flies mean most people go only once. Locals head instead to the Wasatch reservoirs such as Jordanelle and Pineview, which have paddleboards and sandy patches of shore.

Napa is in another league here. Cellars from grand estates to family wineries line the valley, Carneros produces Pinot Noir and sparkling wine, and Yountville and St Helena hold restaurants known across the country. Even an ordinary lunch at the Oxbow Public Market draws on the farms nearby.

Salt Lake City's food is likeable but rarely the reason for a trip. Fry sauce, pastrami burgers, fried scones and dirty sodas are fun to try, and the best meals come from the Mexican, Pacific Islander and Vietnamese kitchens along State Street. Wine and cocktail culture is thin under Utah's rules, so wine lovers will feel the contrast most.

Salt Lake City has noticeably more to see. Temple Square alone fills a morning, with the granite temple, the domed Tabernacle and the Conference Center. The Capitol, the painted Cathedral of the Madeleine and the Natural History Museum's dinosaurs fill a second day.

Napa's sights are mostly atmosphere. You will find the 1880 Opera House and Victorian fronts on First Street, the di Rosa art estate in Carneros and the stone wineries and old main streets up the valley. One day is enough to see them.

Neither city stays out late, but Salt Lake City at least gives you options. Downtown, Main Street and the Granary District have breweries, bars and a few dance clubs, and the city has a long-standing gay scene, even if Utah's liquor laws keep drinks weaker and closing times earlier.

In Napa, evenings mean a long dinner followed by one glass at a wine bar by the river. The valley goes quiet soon afterwards, and a proper night out means driving the hour to San Francisco.

Salt Lake City has much the bigger outdoors. The Wasatch rises straight from the edge of town to peaks above 3,000m, and in less than an hour you can reach some of the most famous powder skiing in North America. Summer brings wildflower meadows and peak hikes, the foothill trails start above the Avenues, and to the west the Salt Flats stretch to the horizon.

Napa's landscape is gentler and more cultivated. You get a vineyard floor between two low ranges, dawn balloon flights and a flat cycling trail, plus redwood groves in Bothe-Napa Valley State Park and the climb up Mount St Helena. It is lovely, but it fills days rather than a whole trip.

Napa has the far richer range of outings. Yountville, St Helena and Calistoga are each a short drive, and Sonoma's plaza and mission are half an hour over the Carneros hills. Healdsburg and the Russian River valley make a different wine day, and San Francisco, Sausalito and Berkeley are about an hour away.

From Salt Lake City, Park City's old silver-mining Main Street is the one easy outing, with Midway and Ogden's 25th Street close behind. The red-rock national parks that draw people to Utah are four hours or more away and need an overnight stay.

Salt Lake City is one of the more child-centred cities in America. Big families are normal, and the zoo, aquarium, planetarium, aviary and children's museum are all in the valley. Lagoon's roller coasters are twenty minutes north, and in winter the ski schools are good.

Napa can be managed with children, thanks to the Vallejo animal park, Calistoga's geyser and hotel pools. But tasting rooms, long dinners, hot summer afternoons and drives between wineries make it hard going for younger ones.

Salt Lake City gives you more choice without a car. TRAX light rail runs from the airport to downtown and the University, FrontRunner trains run to Ogden and Provo, and ski buses climb the canyons in winter. The wide grid makes walking slow, though, and the zoo and outlying towns are still easier to reach by car.

Napa's compact downtown is easy to walk, but the wineries are spread along some 50km of road and the buses are too infrequent to rely on. Because tasting and driving do not mix, many visitors end up paying for a driver or a tour.

In Napa you shop for wine and in Salt Lake City for outdoor gear, and that says a lot about why people visit each. In Napa, many visitors have whole cases shipped home from the cellars where they tasted, and the Oxbow market and St Helena's main street add olive oil, food gifts and cookware.

Salt Lake City's local ski, climbing and camping shops are excellent, so it is a good place to kit out a mountain trip. For familiar brands there is City Creek Center, an open-air mall with a creek running through it, and Trolley Square, set in old streetcar barns. Vintage and independent shops gather around 9th and 9th.

Salt Lake City is clearly the cheaper place to stay. Downtown hotels are reasonably priced, everything on Temple Square is free and light rail costs little. Costs rise mainly with ski lift tickets and slopeside lodging, so a summer hiking trip is the bargain.

Napa is one of the most expensive destinations in America. Luxury rooms, costly estate tastings, special-occasion restaurants and a driver for tasting days all add up. Taquerias and the market hall help, but they never make it a budget trip.

Salt Lake City has a fuller programme. You can attend the Tabernacle Choir's rehearsals and broadcasts with the great organ, and there are daily organ recitals as well. The Utah Symphony, Utah Opera, Ballet West and touring Broadway shows at the Eccles Theater give it a year-round season.

Napa offers concerts and comedy at the Opera House, touring acts at an Art Deco theatre and two big seasonal festivals. Outside those weeks, serious opera or orchestral music means an evening in San Francisco.

Napa is the more restful place by a wide margin. Calistoga has been a spa town since the nineteenth century, known for volcanic mud baths and mineral pools, and the resort spas in Carneros and the hills use vineyard products in their treatments. The whole day is set at an easy pace.

Salt Lake City's best soak is the warm pool inside the limestone dome of Homestead Crater in Midway, an hour away. Beyond that, relaxing there mostly means a resort spa after a day of skiing.