Page, Arizona or San Jose?

Page has the better swimming, though it is in a lake. By midsummer Lake Powell is warm enough for long swims, and the best of it is from boats pulling into sandstone coves or from the open sand at Lone Rock. There are no lifeguards, and the shoreline moves as the water level rises and falls.

San Jose has real ocean beaches at Santa Cruz and Capitola, but they are over the mountains. The Pacific stays so cold that most people surf in wetsuits or stay on the sand. It makes a beach-town day out rather than a swimming trip.

Food is one of the clearest gaps between the two. San Jose's large Vietnamese community fills east-side strip malls with pho, banh mi and broken-rice plates. There are also taquerias, Indian and Korean kitchens, the family places of Japantown and wineries in the Santa Cruz Mountains. You drive between them, but the cooking is serious.

Page feeds road-trippers with diners, barbecue and chains, and it shuts early. The one dish worth looking for is the Navajo taco on frybread, best from roadside stands on the reservation.

Neither city is a museum destination, but San Jose gives you more to see indoors. The Winchester Mystery House, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, Mission Santa Clara and the Computer History Museum make a couple of curious days. Page, a dam town founded in the 1950s, has the Carl Hayden Visitor Center at Glen Canyon Dam and a small museum devoted to John Wesley Powell. Its deeper culture lies in the surrounding Navajo Nation rather than in the town.

San Jose's scene is modest, but it exists. San Pedro Square has pubs, beer halls and a covered food hall, and SoFA has cocktail and dive bars and a few dance clubs at weekends. San Francisco is a train ride away for a bigger night.

Page has a brewpub and a few bars, no clubs, and early nights set by the sunrise canyon tours. Its best evening is the starry sky outside town.

Both are strong outdoors, but Page is far more dramatic. The glowing walls of Antelope Canyon, the river's loop at Horseshoe Bend, the boat trip to Rainbow Bridge, rafting from Lees Ferry and the Vermilion Cliffs are all close by.

San Jose's outdoors is gentler and greener. It has redwood groves at Big Basin and Henry Cowell, foothill trails at Alum Rock, and sea otters and whales on Monterey Bay. This is varied, pleasant hiking country rather than a landscape people cross a continent to see, though it is much kinder in summer than Page's midday heat.

San Jose is much the better base for day trips. San Francisco is an easy day by Caltrain, Stanford and Berkeley are close, and Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel and the Napa and Sonoma wine country each give a day in a different place.

Around Page, the draw is land rather than towns. Lees Ferry, the Betatakin cliff dwellings at Navajo National Monument, Kanab with its film-set history and Pipe Spring make a short list, and the drives between them are long.

San Jose has places built for children: Great America, the small zoo at Happy Hollow and a children's discovery museum downtown. The Santa Cruz Boardwalk and the Monterey Bay Aquarium are within reach, and the mild weather makes days outside easy most of the year.

Page can be a memorable trip for outdoorsy families, with days at the lake and short canyon tours. But nothing there is made for children, the summer sun is fierce, and the unfenced cliff edges at the viewpoints need close watching.

In Page a car is not optional. The motel strip can be walked, but Horseshoe Bend, the marinas and the Vermilion Cliffs all lie out along the highway, and the nearest major airports are hours away, so most visitors arrive on a road trip.

San Jose has rail to fall back on. Caltrain runs up the Peninsula to Palo Alto and San Francisco, light rail crosses the city from north to south, and downtown's museums, arena and bar streets are close enough to walk between. The Winchester mansion, the foothill parks and the coast still mean a car or ride-hailing, and rush-hour freeway traffic needs planning around.

San Jose's large mall on the west side, and the open-air street beside it, bring most international and luxury brands together, and there are boutiques in Los Gatos and Willow Glen and Asian supermarkets to browse. Page has gift shops and supplies, but its one real draw is Navajo craft: silver and turquoise jewellery, rugs and pottery, bought at trading posts or straight from the maker.

In Page the money goes on getting into the landscape. Meals and fuel cost what they do in any small American town, but Antelope Canyon can only be seen on paid guided tours, boats and houseboats are expensive, and rooms are scarce in the busy months. Camping at Lone Rock or Wahweap, or coming in winter, keeps the trip within reason.

San Jose is the dearer of the two because its everyday costs are high: hotels priced for business travel, sit-down restaurants, drinks and parking, plus the hire car you will almost certainly need. Cheaper weekend hotel rates, the Vietnamese and Mexican eateries in suburban plazas and the free trails soften the bill.

San Jose has a real arts calendar, if a small one. Opera San José performs in the restored California Theatre, and the symphony and touring Broadway shows play downtown. Big touring concerts fill the arena, and the summer jazz festival takes over the streets. In Page there is nothing to plan a trip around beyond the Navajo dance presentations and dinner shows put on for visitors, and the odd bar band.

Page's rest comes from the desert itself, in quiet evenings, wide views and dark skies, and beyond motel pools and a few hotel offerings there is little else. Early canyon starts and long drives make most stays active ones.

San Jose has actual places to unwind. There are day spas in the wealthier suburbs, Korean-style bathhouses with saunas and soaking pools, the Japanese gardens at Hakone and Kelley Park for a calm hour, and the leafy streets of Los Gatos and Saratoga for a slower afternoon.