Page, Arizona or Winter Park, Colorado?

Page has real summer swimming. Lake Powell warms to about 26°C at the surface in midsummer, Lone Rock Beach has sand you can drive down to, and from a boat or kayak you can pull into coves and jump off rock into deep water. There are no lifeguards, and the beaches move as the lake level rises and falls.

Winter Park is high in the Rockies, and its nearby lakes, such as Grand Lake, stay cold from snowmelt even in July. They are good for paddling but not for a swim. Here the water to look forward to is a heated pool or a hot spring.

Neither town is somewhere you go to eat, and the food is equally plain in both. The difference is the setting. Page feeds road-trippers and tour groups from diners and barbecue joints along its strip, and it does have one real local dish, the Navajo taco on frybread, sold at roadside stands on the reservation. Winter Park eats like a ski town, with breakfast burritos before the lifts open, green chile at the slopeside lodges, craft breweries and a few dinner rooms serving elk and trout, so it has slightly more choice for a sit-down evening meal.

Page has more to show, though there isn't much. The main sight is the Glen Canyon Dam, and the Carl Hayden Visitor Center explains how the dam was built and why the town was founded in the 1950s, with views down to the river and the steel arch bridge. A small museum is devoted to John Wesley Powell, who mapped the Colorado, and the Navajo Nation all around gives the area a living culture that goes deeper than the town itself.

Winter Park has even less. Its heritage is the railway story of the Moffat Tunnel and the homesteading ranch museum in Fraser, which fill an hour rather than a day. For a proper day of museums you have to drive over the pass.

Winter Park has more of an evening, and it is all après-ski. The base village bars fill up when the lifts close, and the taprooms along the main road stay busy on winter weekends. By late evening the town is quiet anyway.

Page is quieter still, with a few bars and a brewpub, and most people go to bed early before the canyon tours. The best thing to do at night there is to look at the very dark, starry desert sky.

Both are first-class bases for the outdoors, but they offer very different landscapes. Around Page it is desert sandstone. You see light shafts in Antelope Canyon, the loop of the river at Horseshoe Bend, and Rainbow Bridge, which you reach by boat across Lake Powell. Lees Ferry is the starting point for rafting, and the Wave and Buckskin Gulch are within a couple of hours.

Winter Park is alpine forest and high peaks. There is skiing on two mountains in winter, and in summer there is a well-known bike park and singletrack trails around Fraser. You can hike in the Indian Peaks, and the moose and tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park are about an hour north. Page is best for hiking in spring and autumn, and Winter Park is best on snow or on summer mornings.

Winter Park has more towns to visit nearby. Georgetown and Idaho Springs, with their Victorian mining streets and narrow-gauge railway, are about an hour away over Berthoud Pass, Grand Lake has its wooden boardwalk, and Denver and Boulder are close enough for a city day. Winter storms on the pass can upset plans.

From Page, the outings are mostly landscape with a little history. Lees Ferry and Lonely Dell Ranch make an easy half day, and the Betatakin cliff dwellings and Pipe Spring are worth the drive. Beyond these, the roads are long and the towns are few.

Winter Park is built around families. It has a large ski school, gentle slopes at the base and a small village within walking distance of the lifts. Winter adds sleigh rides and skating, and summer brings an alpine slide and mini golf. The altitude can disturb sleep for the first night or two.

Page suits outdoor-minded families. A lake day at Lone Rock and the short Antelope Canyon tours appeal to all ages. However, it has no attractions made for children, the summer sun is fierce, and at Horseshoe Bend small children need a firm hand because the cliff edges are unfenced.

Winter Park lets you leave the car parked for most of a ski week. A free shuttle runs between the ski base, the town and Fraser. You will still need to drive to trailheads and the national park, and getting there from Denver means crossing a mountain pass.

In Page a car is essential for everything except the strip of motels. There is no useful public transport, the major airports are hours away, and most visitors arrive on a road trip.

Navajo craft is the one real reason to shop in Page. Silver and turquoise jewellery, rugs and pottery are sold at trading posts and roadside stalls, often by the person who made them. Beyond that the town sells souvenirs, boating supplies and groceries for stocking a houseboat or cooler.

Winter Park's shops serve the sport. The ski and snowboard rental and tuning shops, bike shops and outdoor clothing stores in the base village and along the main road will replace gear you forgot. There is little local to take home, though, and for anything more you need to go to Denver.

Page costs a little less overall, though it is not cheap. Antelope Canyon can only be seen on a paid tour, boats and houseboats are expensive, and rooms run short in the busy months. Camping at Lone Rock or Wahweap, or coming in winter, keeps costs down.

A winter week in Winter Park is the bigger expense, with lift tickets, rentals, lessons and resort-priced meals. Condos with kitchens in Fraser help, and in summer, when the trails are free and lodging rates fall, the gap narrows.

Page's only stage is one set up for visitors. On some evenings there are Navajo cultural presentations and dinner shows with traditional dance, and now and then a local band plays in a bar. There is no theatre or concert venue.

Winter Park has a little more, mostly in summer, when free concerts and the occasional music festival take place in the town park, with the mountains behind the stage. For the rest of the year live music means a band in an après-ski bar, and for theatre or a concert hall you would need to plan an evening in Denver.

Winter Park is the better place to unwind. Most condos and lodges have a hot tub, there are a few spas for tired legs, and the mineral pools at Hot Sulphur Springs step down a hillside about half an hour away. The quieter weeks of late spring and autumn are the most relaxing time to go.

Page has motel pools and wide, silent desert evenings. Its days are built around early canyon tours and long drives, though, so it is better for an active stay than a restful one.