Newport Beach or San Jose?

Here the gap is wide. Newport Beach lives on its sand: ten kilometres along the Balboa Peninsula, surf by the piers, the dangerous waves at the Wedge, and quieter coves at Corona del Mar and Crystal Cove. The water is cool for much of the year and many people bring wetsuits, but in late summer you can swim.

San Jose has no beach of its own. Santa Cruz and Capitola are pleasant once you have driven over the mountains, but the water in Monterey Bay stays cold even in late summer. The coast is a day out rather than the core of a trip.

San Jose has the slight edge, mainly because there is more of it to explore. There is the huge Vietnamese community, serious taquerias, Indian and Korean places along the roads to Santa Clara, and old family restaurants in Japantown. The catch is that the best of it is spread across suburban plazas you have to drive between.

Newport offers the better setting rather than the better cooking. You get boat views around the harbour and Lido, brunch in Corona del Mar and fish tacos by the sand, though you pay for the view. For serious Vietnamese food, Newport visitors drive to Little Saigon in Westminster.

Neither is a sightseeing city, but San Jose has more to fill an afternoon. The Winchester Mystery House, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum and Mission Santa Clara are real curiosities, and the Computer History Museum nearby tells the story of the valley around it.

Newport's sights are few and mostly about the setting. There is the Balboa Pavilion of 1905, Schindler's Lovell Beach House for architecture fans and the Sherman gardens, while the nearest serious art museum is in Costa Mesa.

Nights out are equally low-key in both. The difference is where they happen. Newport has two kinds of evening: loud beach and dive bars near the piers, full of young locals on summer weekends, and calmer wine bars and hotel lounges around the harbour. There are no real clubs, and out of season the town goes quiet early.

San Jose's nightlife is on a few downtown blocks. San Pedro Square, with its pubs, beer halls and covered market, fills up before and after games and concerts at the arena nearby. South First Street has cocktail bars and a few dance clubs that get busy at weekends. For a bigger night, Newport goes to Los Angeles and San Jose goes to San Francisco.

San Jose's ring of hills gives it the slightly better outdoors. There are old-growth redwoods at Big Basin and Henry Cowell, ridge trails at Castle Rock and easy hikes in Alum Rock Park on the edge of the city. Further out, you can kayak among sea otters on Monterey Bay.

Newport's nature is gentler and more coastal. There are birds on the Upper Newport Bay estuary, bluff and canyon paths at Crystal Cove, paddling in the harbour and whale-watching boats from the town itself. For forest and real height, it means an hour's drive to the Santa Ana Mountains.

Both cities have a lot within driving range, but San Jose has the richer list, and its biggest trip needs no car: San Francisco is about an hour away by Caltrain. Monterey, Carmel, Santa Cruz, Stanford and the wineries of the Santa Cruz Mountains fill out the rest of a week.

From Newport, the highlights are Laguna Beach, Mission San Juan Capistrano and the ferry to Catalina Island, with Los Angeles and San Diego further away. Nearly all of it means driving on freeways, where traffic can double the journey time.

Newport is the more natural family base. Children get shallow harbour water, the Balboa Fun Zone, the car ferry to Balboa Island and tide pools, and Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are about half an hour inland.

San Jose works well enough, with Great America in Santa Clara, the small Happy Hollow zoo and two hands-on museums downtown. But its seaside treats, the Santa Cruz Boardwalk and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, are a long drive away.

Caltrain and a north-south light-rail line give San Jose something Newport does not have: a way to reach some places without a car. The downtown museums, the arena and the bar streets are close enough to walk between, and the train is a reliable way up to Palo Alto and San Francisco.

Newport has no rail at all, and its buses are slow. Without a car, you can manage on the flat Balboa Peninsula with its boardwalk and on little Balboa Island, which are linked by the small ferry. Elsewhere you need to drive, and parking near the beaches is hard to find on summer weekends.

Newport is the better place for luxury shopping. The open-air centre above the harbour and the huge mall ten minutes inland in Costa Mesa have stores from most of the big fashion houses. Corona del Mar and Balboa Island add boutiques and nautical gift shops.

San Jose's big west-side mall and the open-air boutique street beside it cover the international brands well, but beyond them there is less. You have a few long-standing Japantown shops, the main streets of Los Gatos and Willow Glen, and Asian supermarkets worth a browse. Neither city has much in the way of markets or crafts.

Expect high costs in both. Newport is at its most expensive in summer, when resort hotels and restaurants with views charge the most, and staying inland in Costa Mesa or Irvine saves a little.

San Jose's hotel prices follow the business week, so weekends can be noticeably cheaper, and its suburban Vietnamese and Mexican eateries are fair value. In both cities, car hire, fuel and parking add to the cost.

Newport's stage is next door, and it is a good one. The Segerstrom Center in Costa Mesa, ten minutes away, hosts touring Broadway shows, ballet and the Pacific Symphony, and South Coast Repertory stages new American plays alongside it.

San Jose's own programme is smaller. Its strengths are Opera San José in the restored California Theatre, a symphony, big concerts at the arena and a long-running summer jazz festival. On an ordinary night, serious theatregoers in either place end up driving to Los Angeles or travelling to San Francisco.

Newport is the easier place to unwind, mostly because of its pace: bluff walks, coffee by the harbour, sunsets over the water and full spas in the resorts above the coast.

San Jose is built around the working week. Its quiet corners are the hillside towns of Los Gatos and Saratoga and the Japanese gardens at Hakone and Kelley Park. It does have something Newport lacks, though: a few Korean-style bathhouses with saunas and soaking pools.