Newport Beach or Scottsdale?

Here the two hardly compete. Newport Beach is built around its sand: ten kilometres of the Balboa Peninsula, surfers at the piers, quieter coves at Corona del Mar and calm harbour strips where toddlers can paddle. The Pacific is cool, though, and wetsuits and boogie boards are more common than lazy floating.

Scottsdale sits in the desert, far from any coast. Swimming means the resort pool, a trip to Saguaro or Canyon Lake, or tubing down the Salt River in summer. These are pleasant, but they are no substitute for the sea.

Both towns eat well without having a cuisine of their own, and in each the most interesting food is a short drive away. The difference is what is on the plate. Newport is about seafood with harbour views, fish tacos on the sand and a frozen banana on Balboa Island, and Little Saigon is twenty minutes inland.

Scottsdale is steakhouses, patio grills and long happy hours. Its local note is Sonoran-style Mexican, with carne asada and huge flour tortillas, and the more characterful kitchens are in Phoenix.

Scottsdale gives the curious visitor noticeably more. Taliesin West, Wright's desert studio, is a sight in its own right. The Museum of the West, the contemporary art museum, the Old Town galleries and, just beyond the city, the Heard Museum and the Musical Instrument Museum can fill several days.

Newport offers only a handful of things to look at: the 1905 Balboa Pavilion, Schindler's Lovell Beach House for architecture enthusiasts and the Sherman gardens. Its real sights are the yachts and the bluffs.

Scottsdale is the place to stay out late. Old Town packs dance clubs, rooftop lounges and sports bars into a few blocks, with dress codes, bottle service and a crowd of spring-training fans and bachelor and bachelorette parties.

Newport has no real clubs. Evenings mean loud dive bars by the piers or a glass of wine in a harbour lounge, home before midnight, and a big night out means driving to Los Angeles or Costa Mesa.

Both are strong for the outdoors, but on completely different terrain. Newport's is coastal and works all year: kayaks and paddleboards in the harbour, birds in the Upper Newport Bay estuary, whale-watching boats in every season and bluff trails at Crystal Cove.

Scottsdale's is desert. The McDowell Sonoran Preserve, Camelback Mountain and the Superstition Mountains offer saguaro-lined hiking, horse riding and balloon flights, and the landscape is more dramatic. From June to September, though, the heat confines walking to the hours around dawn.

Newport has more within easy reach. Laguna Beach and Mission San Juan Capistrano are each half an hour or less away, a ferry from Balboa reaches Catalina Island, and both Los Angeles and San Diego work as day outings, although freeway traffic can stretch every journey.

Scottsdale's best outings take longer. Sedona, Montezuma Castle and the old mining town of Jerome are about two hours north and Tucson is a similar distance south, while the Grand Canyon really needs an overnight stay. The Goldfield ghost town and the Apache Trail make shorter outings.

Newport is the easier choice with children. Shallow harbour water, the Balboa Fun Zone's ferris wheel, the car ferry to the island and the tide pools at Crystal Cove keep days simple, and Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are about half an hour inland.

In Scottsdale, family life tends to revolve around resort lazy rivers and kids' clubs, with outings to the miniature railway park, the aquarium and the Phoenix Zoo. It works well in winter, but in summer the midday heat drives everyone indoors or into the pool.

In both towns a hire car is close to essential. What differs is the driving and the walkable pockets. Newport's peninsula, boardwalk and Balboa Island can be explored on foot or by bike, linked by the little ferry, but freeways are often busy and beach parking is scarce on summer weekends.

Scottsdale has fewer car-free corners, essentially just Old Town and the free trolley to the shops. On the other hand, its simple grid, light traffic and plentiful parking make the driving itself far less of a chore.

Both are luxury-mall towns, each with a huge mall full of fashion houses and polished open-air centres, and neither has much in the way of markets or independent design. What sets them apart is the local character. Newport adds surf shops, nautical gifts on Marine Avenue and boutiques along Coast Highway.

Scottsdale has the more distinctive specialist trade: southwestern painting and glass on Main Street and Marshall Way, Navajo and Hopi silver and turquoise, Pueblo pottery and cowboy boots.

Neither is cheap, but Scottsdale is gentler on the wallet. Its resorts cut rates sharply in the hot summer, motels and Mexican food help a tight budget, and the desert trails are free.

Newport is expensive even for California, with resort prices by the water, views priced into every meal, and car costs on top. Staying inland in Costa Mesa or Irvine is the main way to save.

Newport has the edge, though it comes from next door rather than from the town itself. Ten minutes away in Costa Mesa, the Segerstrom Center stages touring Broadway musicals and ballet and is home to the Pacific Symphony, and South Coast Repertory beside it is known for new American plays. Newport itself has summer concerts by the water and bands in the beach bars. For opera or a jazz club, you face the long drive to Los Angeles.

Scottsdale's own performing arts centre in Old Town puts on jazz, chamber music, comedy and dance, and the theatre at the Musical Instrument Museum adds world music and acoustic concerts. For the symphony, Arizona Opera or Ballet Arizona, it is half an hour into Phoenix, so the bigger productions are a little further away than they are from Newport.

Scottsdale is the clear choice for a restful break. Its many large resort spas, several open to day guests, offer desert-inspired treatments, steam rooms and long massage menus, and dry air, mountain views, golf and early nights make the whole stay unhurried.

Newport relaxes you in a looser way: bluff-top morning walks, coffee by the harbour and sunsets over the Pacific. It has spas at the hillside resorts and plenty of yoga studios, but summer weekends on the peninsula are anything but calm.