Page, Arizona or Salt Lake City?

Page has the real swimming of the two. By midsummer Lake Powell warms to about 26°C. You can spend the day on the sand at Lone Rock or jump off rock into deep coves from a boat or kayak, although there are no lifeguards and the shoreline moves as the lake level changes.

Salt Lake City's own lake is a curiosity: you float once in brine on Antelope Island, among mud and brine flies. For proper swimming, locals drive up to Wasatch reservoirs such as Jordanelle or Pineview, which are pleasant on a hot day but not a reason to visit.

Neither city is a dining destination, but Salt Lake City gives you more to work with. Its best meals come from the Mexican, Pacific Islander, Peruvian and Vietnamese kitchens along State Street. Downtown and Sugar House add craft breweries, coffee roasters and a few ambitious restaurants, and the local oddities, fry sauce and fried scones with honey butter, are worth trying.

In Page, eating is about refuelling between outings. The main strip has diners, barbecue, pizza and chains, and the Navajo taco on frybread is the one dish worth tracking down.

Salt Lake City has a proper day or two of sightseeing, centred on Temple Square. There you find the granite temple, the Tabernacle with its organ and the Beehive House. Beyond it are the State Capitol, the painted interior of the Cathedral of the Madeleine and the dinosaur halls of the Natural History Museum.

Page was founded in the 1950s to house the dam workers, and it offers the Glen Canyon Dam visitor centre and a small museum about John Wesley Powell. Its deeper cultural layer is the Navajo Nation around it, which most visitors meet through the guided canyon tours rather than indoors.

Both cities go to bed early, but Salt Lake City at least gives you a choice. It has bars, breweries and a few dance clubs downtown and in the Granary District, a long-standing gay bar scene and neighbourhood pubs in Sugar House, all shaped by Utah's liquor rules. Page has a handful of bars and a brewpub, and its best evening is spent under a dark desert sky full of stars.

Both are outstanding, and the difference is in the kind of landscape. Page is red-rock desert: the glowing slot canyons of Antelope Canyon, the river loop at Horseshoe Bend, Lake Powell's flooded canyons leading to Rainbow Bridge, rafting from Lees Ferry and the Vermilion Cliffs close by. The hiking is best in spring and autumn, and summer is better spent on the water.

Salt Lake City is alpine. The Wasatch rises straight from the edge of the city to peaks over 3,000m. Alta, Snowbird and the other resorts known for dry powder are under an hour away, and in summer there are wildflower meadows and peak hikes, with trails starting above the Avenues. To the west, Antelope Island's bison and the Bonneville Salt Flats give a very different, open landscape.

Salt Lake City has the better outings to real towns. Park City's restored Victorian Main Street is about forty minutes away, Midway and Heber are in the next valley, and Ogden's old railroad strip on 25th Street makes a good half day. Utah's famous national parks, though, are too far to see in a day.

From Page, most trips head into empty landscape. For history you have the pioneer buildings at Lees Ferry, the Betatakin cliff dwellings at Navajo National Monument, and the small Western town of Kanab with Pipe Spring nearby, all with long drives in between.

Salt Lake City is much easier with children. It has Hogle Zoo, an aquarium, a children's museum, a planetarium and Tracy Aviary, with the Lagoon amusement park twenty minutes north and ski schools in winter. Restaurants and public places expect large families.

Page suits families who love the outdoors. A beach day at Lone Rock and the short Antelope Canyon tours go down well. But nothing in town is built for children, the summer sun is harsh, and the unfenced cliff edges at Horseshoe Bend mean holding small hands tightly.

Salt Lake City lets you go some way without a car. TRAX light rail links the airport, downtown and the University, FrontRunner trains run to Ogden and Provo, and ski buses climb the canyons in winter. The wide grid makes walking feel slow, though, and the zoo and the canyons are easier to reach by car.

In Page there is no real alternative to driving. Only the motel strip can be walked, Horseshoe Bend and the marinas lie outside town, and the nearest major airports are hours away, so most people arrive on a road trip.

Shopping is not a reason to visit either city, but Salt Lake City has more range. There is the open-air City Creek Center, the old streetcar barns of Trolley Square, independent shops around 9th and 9th, and excellent local ski and climbing shops. Page has one real draw: Navajo silver, turquoise, rugs and pottery, sold at trading posts and roadside stalls, often by the person who made them.

Neither city is cheap, and the costs fall in different places. In Page, rooms are scarce in the busy months and the main sights cost money: Antelope Canyon can only be seen on a paid tour, and boats on the lake are expensive. Camping at Lone Rock or Wahweap, or coming in winter, keeps the bill down.

Salt Lake City has reasonably priced hotels and casual food, and everything on Temple Square is free. Skiing is what drives the cost up. Lift tickets, equipment hire and lodging in the canyons make a winter week much dearer than a summer hiking trip.

The gap here is wide. Salt Lake City has the Tabernacle Choir, whose rehearsals and broadcasts with the great organ are open to the public. It also has the Utah Symphony at Abravanel Hall, Utah Opera, Ballet West and touring shows at the Eccles Theater.

Page has nothing to plan a trip around beyond the odd Navajo dance presentation or dinner show and a local band in a bar.

Salt Lake City has more for a restful day. You can soak in warm mineral water inside the limestone dome of the Homestead Crater at Midway, about an hour away, and the resort spas of Park City are there after skiing. Page offers little beyond hotel pools and the stillness of the desert at night, and its early starts for the canyons leave little time to slow down.