Newport Beach or Sonoma?

Newport Beach is built around its shoreline. The Balboa Peninsula has ten kilometres of sand for surfing and volleyball, Corona del Mar has calmer coves and the harbour has shallow strips where toddlers can paddle. Outside late summer the water is cool, so many people bring a wetsuit.

Sonoma has no beach of its own. The coast at Bodega Bay is for looking at, not swimming, so a summer dip means a hotel pool or the gravel shores of the Russian River.

Sonoma is the stronger place to eat because wine is the whole point. There are tasting rooms around the plaza, old-vine Zinfandel and Carneros Pinot Noir close by, and seasonal cooking built on local cheese, olive oil and oysters. Its weakness is range: there are few restaurants and little late eating.

Newport has more variety but less character. Expect harbour seafood with boat views, fish tacos on the peninsula and a frozen banana on Balboa Island. Its best eating is just outside town, in Costa Mesa and the Vietnamese kitchens of Little Saigon.

Neither town is a sightseeing destination, but Sonoma has more history to see. Its broad plaza, where the Bear Flag Revolt broke out in 1846, is faced by the last of the Franciscan missions and the adobe barracks, and Vallejo's house is a short walk away. Together they fill a satisfying half day.

Newport's sights are fewer and more spread out: the Balboa Pavilion and its little ferry, Schindler's Lovell Beach House for architecture fans and the Sherman gardens. For a serious art museum you go next door to Costa Mesa.

Newport has the livelier evenings, though there are no proper clubs. The beach and dive bars by the piers are packed on summer weekends, and the wine bars and hotel lounges around the harbour suit a dressier crowd. Sonoma winds down after dinner. A few wine bars and saloons on the plaza stay open for a while, then the town goes quiet, and anyone wanting a late night has to go to Santa Rosa or San Francisco.

Both have fine outdoors close by, but of different kinds. Newport's is about water: the estuary of Upper Newport Bay, full of birds in winter, kayaks and paddleboards in the harbour, whale-watching boats all year and the bluff paths of Crystal Cove.

Sonoma's is about land. Vineyards fill the valley between two mountain ranges, trails climb from the plaza to the Overlook, and Sugarloaf Ridge has redwood groves and views from Bald Mountain. Add cycling on the back roads and balloons at dawn, and spring wildflowers as the high point of the year.

Newport's outings are the more varied. Laguna Beach's galleries and coves are twenty minutes down the coast, the mission at San Juan Capistrano is half an hour away, and a ferry of a little over an hour reaches Avalon on Catalina. Los Angeles and San Diego are close enough for a full city day. Nearly all of this means freeway driving, and rush hour can double the times.

Sonoma has one big city trip, San Francisco, about an hour away. Petaluma's Victorian river town and Sausalito on the bay are even closer. Beyond those, a day out usually means more wine country, either Napa's towns across the hills or the valleys around Healdsburg. That is a treat for wine lovers but gets repetitive for anyone else.

Newport is much the easier choice with children. It has shallow harbour water, the ferris wheel at the Balboa Fun Zone, the car ferry to Balboa Island, tide pools and bike paths. Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm are about half an hour inland.

Sonoma is safe and calm, but it is made for tasting rooms and long lunches. The plaza playground, a miniature railway and an African wildlife park near Santa Rosa will fill a day or two, not a week.

You need a car in both, and neither has buses worth relying on. The difference is in what you can manage without one. In Newport, the flat Balboa Peninsula with its boardwalk and Balboa Island make a small area by the sea that is easy on foot or by bike, though beach parking is hard to find on summer weekends.

In Sonoma, the plaza and the tasting rooms near it are easy to walk, and people often hire a driver or join a tour for winery days so nobody has to drive after tasting.

Newport is the place for serious shopping. 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. There are also boutiques in Corona del Mar and surf shops on the peninsula.

Sonoma's shopping is small and local: boutiques, galleries and kitchen shops around the plaza, plus olive oil, cheese and wine bought straight from the producers. It is good for gifts and food to take home, not for fashion.

In Newport, much of the bill comes from the car: hire, fuel and parking. On top of that come resort rates at the beachfront and harbour hotels and restaurants that charge for the view. Sleeping inland in Costa Mesa or Irvine and eating at taco and burger places brings the total down a little, but it never becomes cheap.

Sonoma's costs build up glass by glass. Tasting fees at several wineries a day mount up over a long weekend, and a driver for those days adds more. The few rooms in town are priced for wine-country weekends, especially at harvest. The easiest saving is a picnic among the vines with a bottle bought from the winery. Another is a room in Santa Rosa or Petaluma.

Newport has easier access to good performances. The Segerstrom Center, ten minutes away in Costa Mesa, is home to the Pacific Symphony and stages touring musicals and ballet, and South Coast Repertory next door puts on new plays.

Sonoma's performances are mostly in summer and outdoors: shows among the ruins in Jack London State Historic Park, concerts at wineries and some live events at the old theatre on the plaza. For classical music, the Green Music Center half an hour away is the exception.

Sonoma is the more restful stay, and only it has natural hot water. The mineral springs at Boyes Hot Springs feed a historic resort spa that sells day passes, and Calistoga's mud baths are an hour away. Quiet mornings on the plaza do the rest.

In Newport, relaxing means resort spas, yoga studios and the slow pace of a beach town, with bluff walks and harbour sunsets. On summer weekends, though, the peninsula is anything but calm.