Page, Arizona or Tucson?

Page has a real place to swim, and Tucson does not. Lake Powell warms up well in midsummer, and you can drive onto the open sand at Lone Rock or take a boat into coves where you jump off rock into deep water. There are no lifeguards, though, and the shoreline moves as the lake level rises and falls.

Tucson's swimming is the hotel pool. The nearest sea, at Puerto Peñasco in Mexico, is about four hours' drive away, and the pools in Sabino Canyon only appear after rain.

Tucson is the far better place to eat, because it has a regional cuisine of its own. Its Sonoran Mexican cooking, with near-translucent flour tortillas, mesquite-grilled meat and family kitchens along South 12th Avenue, is reason enough to plan meals ahead. Desert ingredients such as tepary beans and prickly pear add a local touch.

In Page you eat to refuel between outings, at diners, barbecue and chain restaurants. The one dish to seek out there is the Navajo taco on frybread.

Tucson has much more to see. Mission San Xavier del Bac, with its gilded 18th-century interior, would be worth a detour on its own, and the adobe streets of Barrio Viejo, the Native American collections of the Arizona State Museum and the huge aircraft collection at Pima give you two or three full days.

Page only goes back to the 1950s and grew up around the dam. The Carl Hayden Visitor Center and a small museum about John Wesley Powell can fill an hour or two. The deeper cultural layer is the surrounding Navajo Nation, not anything in town.

Neither town is a big night out, but Tucson at least has one. During term, student dive bars and patios on Fourth Avenue and cocktail bars and rooftops on Congress Street make for a casual weekend evening, and it is all walkable.

Page has a few bars and a brewpub and is asleep well before midnight, partly because visitors are up before dawn for the canyons. Its best evening is a dark desert sky full of stars.

Both are superb bases for the outdoors, but Page's landscape is the more extraordinary. Antelope Canyon's glowing slot walls and Horseshoe Bend are minutes from town. Rainbow Bridge is reached across Lake Powell, Lees Ferry is the start of Grand Canyon rafting, and the Vermilion Cliffs and the Wave are within a couple of hours.

Tucson offers more variety than drama. You can walk through saguaro forest on the city's edge, drive up Mount Lemmon from cactus to pine within an hour, and enjoy some of the best birding and road cycling in the country.

For outings to real places, Tucson is far richer. Bisbee's steep Victorian mining streets, Tombstone's Wild West history, the artists' village of Tubac with the Tumacácori mission ruins, and the wineries of Sonoita and Elgin are all within an easy drive. Biosphere 2 is closer still.

From Page, the trips are mostly into empty country. Lees Ferry's pioneer buildings, the cliff dwellings at Betatakin and the small Western town of Kanab are the main options, and the drives between them are long.

Tucson is easier with children, at least from October to April. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, the zoo, the children's museum, the planetarium and the giant aircraft give you a run of sure-fire days, though they are spread across the city.

Page works for families who love the outdoors. Lake days at Lone Rock and short Antelope Canyon tours go down well with children. But there is nothing built for them, the viewpoint edges are sheer and mostly unfenced, and some canyon tours involve steep ladders.

In both places you will need a hire car, but Tucson gives you a little more without one. The Sun Link streetcar connects downtown, Fourth Avenue and the university, the core is pleasant to walk in cooler months, and slow buses cover the rest.

In Page, only the motel strip can be walked. There is no useful public transport, and since the nearest major airports are hours away, most people arrive by car on a road trip anyway.

Both towns are good for Native American craft, but Tucson has more range. In Page, Navajo silver, turquoise and rugs are bought at trading posts and roadside stalls, often straight from the maker, and beyond that there are mostly boating supplies and groceries.

Tucson adds Tohono O'odham baskets and Mexican folk art in the old town galleries and Tubac, vintage shops on Fourth Avenue, and its famous winter gem and mineral show, which draws collectors from around the world.

Tucson is the cheaper stay. Mid-range hotels cost less than in the bigger Southwest cities, taquerías and hot dog stands keep meals cheap, and in the summer heat the bargains are easy to find.

Page costs more than its size suggests. Rooms are scarce in the busy months, Antelope Canyon can only be visited on paid tours, and boats and houseboats are expensive. Camping at Lone Rock or coming in winter are the ways to save.

Tucson has a modest but genuine season, from the symphony, Arizona Opera and touring Broadway shows to concerts at the restored Fox Theatre, plus a deep mariachi tradition. Page has little beyond Navajo dance presentations and dinner shows put on for visitors, and the odd band in a bar, so anyone wanting live performance should spend those evenings in Tucson.

Page is somewhere to rest your eyes rather than your body. Beyond motel pools and the odd hotel treatment there is nothing in the way of spas, and the calm comes in passing between early starts: an evening by the water at Wahweap, or the smooth-water float through Glen Canyon below the dam, with the sandstone walls sliding past.

In Tucson, rest can be the whole point of the trip rather than a gap between outings. You can stay at a resort for several days without getting in the car, with a set programme of treatments, gentle exercise and guided walks, and a pool to come back to in the afternoon. Page has nothing like that. Neither city has public baths or hot springs, so in Tucson the calm belongs to your resort, while in Page it comes from the open desert around you.