Newport Beach or Phoenix?

Newport Beach has everything Phoenix lacks here. About ten kilometres of sand run along the Balboa Peninsula, with surfing by the piers, quieter coves at Corona del Mar and Crystal Cove, and shallow strips inside the harbour for small children. The Pacific stays cool, so this is a place for wetsuits and boogie boards rather than a long float.

Phoenix is hours from any shore. You swim at Saguaro Lake or Canyon Lake among bare desert cliffs, float down the lower Salt River in summer or, like most visitors, spend the day at the resort pool with its lazy river.

Neither is a great food city, but they eat in different ways. In Newport the setting is the point: seafood with harbour views around Lido, brunch in Corona del Mar and fish tacos by the sand. The standout nearby is Little Saigon in Westminster, for Vietnamese cooking.

Phoenix has a regional cuisine of its own. Sonoran carne asada, flour tortillas so thin you can almost see through them and bacon-wrapped hot dogs from evening carts sit alongside well-known wood-fired pizza, though eating well there usually means driving across the city.

Newport Beach has little sightseeing. There is the Balboa Pavilion of 1905, Schindler's Lovell Beach House for fans of modernism and a quiet hour at Sherman Library & Gardens. The area's art museum is over in Costa Mesa, and mostly you look at yachts and the houses on the bluffs.

Phoenix gives culture much more weight. The Heard Museum is one of the finest places anywhere to see Native American art, the Musical Instrument Museum can fill half a day, and Taliesin West shows Frank Lloyd Wright's desert studio. There is no historic centre, so each visit means a separate drive.

Newport's evenings go two ways. Near the Newport and Balboa piers there are loud beach and dive bars, while the harbour has quieter wine bars and hotel lounges. There are no clubs, and the town goes quiet early out of season, so anyone wanting a big night drives to Costa Mesa or Los Angeles.

Phoenix has more range. Old Town Scottsdale has proper clubs and rooftop bars that fill up at weekends, Mill Avenue in Tempe runs on students, and downtown and Roosevelt Row offer craft beer and cocktails to a local crowd. The districts are far apart, so pick one and take a ride-hail home.

Both are good for getting outdoors, in completely different settings. Newport's outdoors is coastal. There is the Upper Newport Bay estuary, full of herons and shorebirds in winter, kayaks and paddleboards in the harbour, whale-watching boats all year and bluff-top trails at Crystal Cove.

Phoenix is about desert mountains rising straight out of the suburbs. You can scramble up Camelback or Piestewa Peak, walk the saguaro trails of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, and reach Sedona's red rock in about two hours. Its season is the reverse of the coast's: best from October to April, and dangerous for hiking after mid-morning in summer.

Newport is better placed for outings. Laguna Beach is about twenty minutes away and Mission San Juan Capistrano half an hour. The ferry from Balboa reaches Avalon on Catalina Island in a little over an hour, and both Los Angeles and San Diego work as a day out if the freeway traffic allows.

From Phoenix the distances are longer and the list is shorter. Sedona, hillside Jerome, Prescott's Western square, the cliff dwelling at Montezuma Castle and Tucson's Mission San Xavier del Bac are all around two hours out. The Grand Canyon is too far for a comfortable day.

Newport is the easier base for children. It has shallow harbour water, the ferris wheel at the Balboa Fun Zone, the little car ferry to Balboa Island, tide pools and whale-watching boats. Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are about half an hour inland.

Phoenix works in the cooler months, with its zoo, science centre, children's museum, water parks and spring training baseball in March. But its attractions are spread across a huge metro area, and from June to September the heat keeps young children indoors except early in the morning.

Both need a car, so the difference is in the few places you can manage without one. Newport's are small and pleasant: the flat Balboa Peninsula with its boardwalk, compact Balboa Island and the little ferry between them. Parking near the beaches is scarce on summer weekends.

Phoenix has a light rail line linking the airport, downtown and Tempe, which Newport has nothing like. Otherwise its grid stretches for dozens of kilometres, and walking is limited to a few small areas where summer heat makes even short walks hard work. Roads and parking there are easy.

Newport has the stronger luxury shopping. Fashion Island, an open-air centre above the harbour, has department stores and designer names, and one of the country's largest luxury malls is ten minutes away in Costa Mesa. For smaller finds there are boutiques in Corona del Mar and nautical gift shops on Balboa Island.

Phoenix's malls in Scottsdale and near the Biltmore carry the main brands, but what is worth buying there is something else: Navajo and Zuni silver and turquoise, Hopi katsina carvings, pottery and rugs. These are best bought from museum shops and reputable galleries.

Newport Beach is expensive even for California. Hotels charge resort prices, restaurants charge for the view, and car hire, fuel and parking come on top. Staying inland in Costa Mesa or Irvine saves only a little.

Phoenix costs clearly less, except in the busy months from January to April. In summer, resort rates drop sharply, chain hotels along the freeways are good value all year, Sonoran Mexican food is cheap and good, and hiking, one of the main things to do, is mostly free.

Both have a respectable stage scene, though neither has anything you would travel for. Newport relies on its neighbour: the Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa has the Pacific Symphony, touring Broadway shows and ballet, and South Coast Repertory stages new American plays. In summer there are concerts by the water.

Phoenix has its own opera and ballet companies and the Phoenix Symphony. Broadway tours play ASU Gammage, a round auditorium designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and the Musical Instrument Museum hosts concerts. Its season runs from autumn to spring.

In Newport, rest comes from the slow pace: walks on the bluffs, coffee by the harbour and sunsets over the Pacific. There are resort spas on the hills and day spas around Corona del Mar and Fashion Island.

Phoenix and Scottsdale are a classic American place for a resort rest. Large desert resorts at the foot of Camelback Mountain combine spas, several pools and golf, and their treatments use sage, clay and agave. The point is a winter week by the pool in dry warmth. Neither city has hot springs or public baths.