Page, Arizona or Telluride?

Page has real summer swimming on Lake Powell. The water is warm, there is open sand at Lone Rock Beach, and around Wahweap there are coves where you jump from sandstone into deep water, best reached by boat or kayak. There are no lifeguards, and the shoreline moves as the lake level rises and falls.

Telluride has nothing like it. The nearest bathing is a cool reservoir near Ridgway, about an hour away, so time on the water there means rafting, paddling or fishing rather than swimming.

Neither is a food destination, but Telluride eats noticeably better. Ski-resort money supports a few serious kitchens on Colorado Avenue and in Mountain Village, cooking elk, Colorado lamb and trout. Craft beer is easy to find, and the wine lists are deeper than such a small town usually manages.

Page feeds road-trippers, with diners, barbecue, Mexican places and chains along the strip, and it all closes early. The thing to seek out is the Navajo taco on frybread, a dish with local roots that Telluride has no answer to.

Neither town gives you more than an afternoon of sightseeing, but the sights are different. Telluride's appeal is its intact mining-boom streets, a National Historic Landmark district. It has a museum in the old miners' hospital and the 1913 opera house, and mill ruins cling to the canyon walls above.

Page is a 1950s dam town, so its sights are about engineering and exploration: the Carl Hayden Visitor Center at Glen Canyon Dam and the small John Wesley Powell museum. The surrounding Navajo Nation gives the area its deeper cultural layer.

Telluride has the livelier evenings, though neither town has clubs. Après-ski crowds and the old saloons on Colorado Avenue fill up in peak ski weeks and on festival weekends, and they stay busy late.

Page has a few bars and a brewpub and goes quiet well before midnight, partly because visitors are up early for the canyons. Its best night out is the dark, star-filled desert sky.

Both are superb bases for the outdoors, and the choice is between desert and mountain. Page offers red rock and water: Horseshoe Bend, the Antelope Canyon slot canyons with Navajo guides, Rainbow Bridge by boat across Lake Powell, rafting from Lees Ferry and the Vermilion Cliffs. Spring and autumn are for hiking, and summer is for the lake.

Telluride is alpine, with peaks above 4,000m, Bridal Veil Falls and high-basin trails starting at the edge of town. Summer brings a via ferrata, mountain biking and old jeep roads over the passes, and winter brings serious skiing. The altitude takes a day or two to get used to.

Both towns are remote, but Telluride has a little more to offer in the way of towns to visit. Ridgway and the Victorian canyon town of Ouray are an hour or so away, and Silverton is reached over Red Mountain Pass. The cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde lie at the far edge of a day out, and in winter the passes can slow or close the routes.

Page's outings are mostly about landscape rather than towns. The options are the pioneer buildings at Lees Ferry, the Betatakin cliff dwellings at Navajo National Monument, and Kanab with its film-set history and nearby Pipe Spring. Monument Valley is scenery rather than a place to visit.

Both suit outdoor families, and neither has zoos or theme parks. In Page the big hits are water and rock: splashing at Lone Rock, taking a rented boat into the coves, short Antelope Canyon tours and motel pools. The catches are the fierce summer sun, unfenced cliff edges at Horseshoe Bend and long hours in the car.

Telluride offers a free gondola ride, a well-regarded ski school with gentle slopes and easy walks to waterfalls instead of the lake. Wet days leave little to do indoors, and the altitude can disturb young children's sleep for the first few nights.

Telluride is far easier once you are there. You can cross the historic grid on foot in a quarter of an hour, and with the free gondola and town buses many visitors never use a car during their stay. Getting there and going on day trips still takes a car.

In Page a car is essential. Only the motel strip is walkable, and Horseshoe Bend, the marinas and the parks are all a drive away. The major airports are hours away, so most people arrive on a road trip.

Telluride has more to browse. Colorado Avenue has galleries, Western clothing and jewellery boutiques, bookshops and outdoor gear shops, and Mountain Village adds resort boutiques, all at high prices.

Page is mostly supplies and souvenirs, but its one strength is something Telluride lacks. You can buy Navajo silver and turquoise jewellery, rugs and pottery at trading posts, or straight from the makers at roadside stalls.

Neither is cheap, but Page costs noticeably less. Meals and fuel are priced like any small American town. The real costs are the paid Antelope Canyon tours, boat hire and rooms that are scarce in the busy months, and camping at Lone Rock or Wahweap brings the bill right down.

Telluride is near the top of the North American market. Rooms are priced for wealthy second-home owners, lift tickets and restaurant meals are expensive, and rates climb further at Christmas, New Year and on festival weekends. Staying in Ridgway saves money but means a daily drive.

This is one of Telluride's clear advantages. Summer brings the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Town Park, held there since the 1970s, along with jazz, blues and chamber music festivals and the film festival over the Labor Day weekend. The Sheridan Opera House stages concerts, theatre and comedy all year, though outside the festivals there are only a few shows a week.

Page has no theatre or concert venue. There is only the occasional Navajo dance presentation or dinner show put on for visitors, and now and then a band in a bar.

Telluride is the better place to slow down. The hotels in Mountain Village have full spas, and the shoulder seasons are calm. The public hot springs pool in Ouray and the springs near Ridgway are about an hour away for an afternoon soak with mountain views.

Page has motel pools and a few hotel spa offerings, and its sense of rest comes from the wide desert views and dark skies. Days built around dawn canyon tours and long drives leave little time for lazing about.