Page, Arizona or San Diego?

San Diego is the true beach destination. It has a long run of sand from Coronado through Mission and Pacific Beach to the cliff-backed coves of North County, with boardwalks, surf breaks and sheltered paddling in Mission Bay. The Pacific stays cool, though, and is only really comfortable for swimming late in summer.

Page's swimming is lake swimming, and in midsummer Lake Powell is actually warmer than the ocean off San Diego. The trade-off is that there are no beach towns or lifeguards. Apart from open sand at Lone Rock, the best spots are sandstone coves reached by boat or kayak, and the water is too cold for most people outside summer.

These two are not close. San Diego has a real food identity shaped by the Mexican border: fish tacos, carne asada and the California burrito, along with fresh seafood, a long run of Asian kitchens on Convoy Street and one of the country's densest craft-beer scenes.

Page feeds road-trippers and tour groups with diners, barbecue, pizza and chains. The one dish worth seeking out is the Navajo taco on frybread. Meals here simply keep you going between outings.

San Diego has far more to see indoors. Balboa Park alone holds art, natural history, air and space and anthropology museums in its exposition buildings. The USS Midway, Old Town's adobes and the first California mission add history, even if none of it is world class.

Page was founded in the 1950s to house the dam workers, and its sights are the dam's visitor centre and a small museum devoted to John Wesley Powell. Its deeper cultural interest comes from the surrounding Navajo Nation rather than anything in town.

San Diego offers a real choice of nights out: rooftop bars and dance clubs in the Gaslamp, the rowdy beach bars of Pacific Beach, and cocktail bars and taprooms in North Park and Hillcrest. Page has a few bars and a brewpub and goes quiet early. Its best evening is lying back under a desert sky dark enough to show the Milky Way.

Page is surrounded by some of the most dramatic land in the American West. Horseshoe Bend, the glowing walls of Antelope Canyon, Lake Powell's maze of flooded canyons and the Vermilion Cliffs are all close by, and Lees Ferry is the launch point for Grand Canyon rafting.

San Diego's nature is gentler and more varied. It has sea lions and sea caves at La Jolla, the bluffs of Torrey Pines, surf breaks and winter whale-watching, with pine-covered mountains and the Anza-Borrego desert inland. It suits a mix of beach and hiking better than a trip built around sheer scenery.

Leave Page and you are mostly heading for landscape rather than towns. Lees Ferry's pioneer buildings, the cliff dwellings at Navajo National Monument, Kanab's film-set past and the fortified ranch at Pipe Spring are worth the effort, but the drives are long and the places small.

From San Diego the outings are far more varied, and one of them is another country. You can walk into Tijuana from the trolley, drive to the Valle de Guadalupe vineyards in Baja, try Temecula's wineries or the hill town of Julian, or take the train up the coast to Carlsbad and Encinitas. Los Angeles is within reach as well.

San Diego is one of the easiest cities anywhere to bring children to. The zoo, the Safari Park, SeaWorld and Legoland are each a full day out, Balboa Park's lawns and playgrounds fill the gaps, and the mild weather rarely spoils plans.

Page works only for outdoorsy families. A lake day and a short Antelope Canyon tour go down well with children, but there is nothing built for them. The summer sun is harsh, and the unfenced drops at Horseshoe Bend mean holding small hands firmly.

Both are car destinations, but San Diego gives you more options. Downtown, Little Italy and the Gaslamp can be walked, the trolley reaches Old Town and the border, and coastal trains run to the North County beach towns. In Page, apart from the motel strip, everything needs your own wheels, and the nearest major airports are hours away.

Navajo silver and turquoise jewellery, rugs and pottery, bought at trading posts or straight from the maker, are the one real reason to shop in Page. Beyond them the town sells boating supplies, groceries and souvenirs.

San Diego gives you a wider range without being a shopping destination. There are luxury brands at Fashion Valley, an outlet centre by the border, vintage and design shops in North Park, and galleries and upmarket clothing in La Jolla.

Neither is cheap, but Page is somewhat easier on the wallet. Meals and fuel cost what they do in any small American town, and you can keep costs down by camping at Lone Rock or Wahweap. What adds up there are the paid canyon tours and boat hire.

In San Diego, the beach and downtown hotels, the admission prices at the big family parks, and tax and tip on every meal make for a costlier stay. Taco shops and free beaches only partly make up for it.

San Diego has a proper theatre scene. The Old Globe's outdoor Shakespeare stage and the La Jolla Playhouse have both sent shows to Broadway, and the symphony plays summer concerts on the bay. Page has no theatre or concert hall at all, only the occasional Navajo dance presentation or bar band.

San Diego is the easier place to slow down. There are resort spas in La Jolla, Coronado and Carlsbad, Encinitas has its yoga and meditation tradition, and unhurried beach mornings set the pace. Page has motel pools and little else. Its calm comes from desert quiet and starry nights, but most days there start before dawn and involve long drives.