Palm Desert or San Diego?

Palm Desert has no beach at all. The Salton Sea is not for swimming, so your water is the resort pool, and the Pacific is a two-hour drive over the mountains.

San Diego's coast runs for about 110km. It takes in the wide sand at Coronado, the boardwalk at Mission and Pacific Beach, the gentle surf at La Jolla Shores and the cliff-backed beaches further north. The sea stays cool for much of the year, but Mission Bay gives small children calm water to paddle in.

Palm Desert eats out in resort style: steakhouses and patio bistros along El Paseo, pleasant on a warm winter evening but much alike. Its own flavour is at the eastern end of the valley, in the Mexican bakeries of Indio and the date groves selling date shakes.

San Diego has far more character, and it comes from the border: Baja fish tacos, taco shops open late and the fries-stuffed California burrito. Add one of the country's densest craft-brewing scenes and the Asian kitchens of Convoy Street, and it gives you a week of varied eating where the desert offers a few good evenings.

Palm Desert is a post-war resort town. A branch of the Palm Springs Art Museum with its sculpture garden and the galleries on El Paseo fill a morning or two, and the valley's real cultural draw is the mid-century modern architecture of Palm Springs.

San Diego gives you more days of sightseeing. Balboa Park gathers the art, natural history and air and space museums in its Spanish Colonial Revival halls, and the USS Midway sits on the waterfront. Old Town, the first California mission and Cabrillo National Monument trace the region's Spanish, Mexican and early American past.

Evenings in Palm Desert are wine bars and patio happy hours around El Paseo that close early, with a crowd of golfers and retirees. For a later night you drive to a tribal casino or to downtown Palm Springs.

Neither is a city people visit for nights out, but San Diego at least gives you a choice. There are rooftop bars and clubs in the Gaslamp, a student beach-bar strip in Pacific Beach, and taprooms and cocktail bars in North Park and Hillcrest, the centre of the city's gay nightlife.

Both make strong outdoor bases, and the difference is the landscape. Palm Desert is desert and mountain: trails climbing straight into the Santa Rosa Mountains, palm oases in the Indian Canyons, the tramway up to pine forest, and the boulders and night skies of Joshua Tree about an hour away. Its season ends in May, though.

San Diego's outdoors are mostly coastal and work all year. There are the bluffs of Torrey Pines, sea lions and sea caves at La Jolla Cove, tide pools, surfing and grey whales offshore in winter, with forest and the Anza-Borrego desert an hour or so inland.

From Palm Desert the outings are Palm Springs next door, the old film set at Pioneertown, the painted hillside of Salvation Mountain, and cool mountain air in Idyllwild during the summer.

San Diego's list is broader because of the border. You can reach Tijuana by trolley and walk across, drive south to the Valle de Guadalupe vineyards, or head to Julian in the hills, and the North County beach towns are an easy train ride. Temecula wine country is within reach of both, a little closer to the coast.

Palm Desert has one excellent morning out at the Living Desert, and the tramway appeals to older children. After that it relies on resort pools and lawns, because the valley is built for golfers and adults and summer heat rules out midday play.

San Diego is one of the best family cities anywhere. Between the zoo, the Safari Park, SeaWorld, Legoland and the Birch Aquarium, children have enough for a week, and the mild weather rarely cancels a plan. The only catch is distance, as each big park tends to take a whole day.

In Palm Desert you need a car from the start. Only a few blocks of El Paseo are made for walking, and the buses are slow and infrequent. At least the roads are uncongested and parking is easy everywhere.

San Diego is easier, if only in the centre. Downtown, the Gaslamp, Little Italy and the waterfront are walkable, the trolley reaches Old Town and the border, and coastal trains run up to the beach towns. Beyond those the city sprawls, and most visitors still hire a car and fight for beach parking on summer weekends.

El Paseo gives Palm Desert something San Diego lacks: a single palm-lined boulevard of upscale boutiques, jewellers and galleries where browsing is a social outing, with a large designer outlet half an hour west. San Diego spreads its shopping around, from Fashion Valley's open-air luxury mall to vintage shops in North Park, galleries in La Jolla and Mexican crafts in Old Town. It has more variety but no street to match El Paseo.

Neither is cheap, but Palm Desert is the gentler on the budget. From June to September its resort rooms fall to a fraction of their winter rates, if you can bear the heat, and chain hotels and rentals keep it manageable all year. Golf and spa treatments are where the money goes.

San Diego costs more at every turn. Beach and downtown hotels are expensive, the zoo, SeaWorld and Legoland all charge high admission, and you pay for parking on top of the hire car. Taco shops, free beaches and the gardens of Balboa Park help keep a day's spending down.

Palm Desert has one good stage, the McCallum Theatre, which hosts touring Broadway shows, ballet and well-known singers through the winter. Casino concerts add more, and each spring Coachella and Stagecoach fill the polo grounds in nearby Indio for a few weekends.

San Diego makes its own work. The Old Globe in Balboa Park and the La Jolla Playhouse have both sent shows to Broadway, and the symphony plays summer evenings on the bay. Opera, jazz and free organ concerts in the park round out a calendar that runs all year.

Palm Desert was built for slowing down. It has resort spas, pools under the palms, golf and early nights, and the natural hot mineral springs of Desert Hot Springs are half an hour away.

San Diego's version is about pace rather than bathing: resort spas in La Jolla and Coronado, the yoga and meditation culture of Encinitas, and sunset walks by the sea. It has no thermal tradition, and downtown and Pacific Beach are far from quiet.