Palm Desert or Santa Fe?

Neither city has a beach. In Palm Desert the water is the resort pool, often heated in winter, and the Pacific is about two hours away over the mountains. Santa Fe offers summer swims in reservoirs such as Abiquiu Lake or a float down the Rio Grande, but these are outings into the countryside rather than beach days.

Santa Fe has a cuisine of its own, built on red and green chile, blue corn, posole and sopaipillas. Old adobe dining rooms serve it, and the town has a fine-dining tier unusual for a place its size. The Railyard farmers' market is worth a morning on its own.

Palm Desert eats well but without much character, in resort steakhouses and patio bistros along El Paseo. Its local flavour lies further east, in the taquerias of Indio and the date shakes sold at the groves. Neither city offers much variety beyond its own style.

Here the gap is wide. Santa Fe was founded as a Spanish colonial capital in 1610 and still looks it. The Palace of the Governors lines the Plaza, the Loretto Chapel has its spiral staircase, and the museums of folk and Native American art are far better than a town this size would suggest.

Palm Desert is a post-war resort town with a branch of the Palm Springs Art Museum, a sculpture garden and commercial galleries on El Paseo. For real cultural interest its visitors drive to Palm Springs to see the mid-century modern houses.

Both towns go to bed early, in different ways. Palm Desert's evenings are patio happy hours and cocktail lounges on El Paseo, with golfers and retirees for company. Anyone wanting a later night heads for the tribal casinos or the bars of Palm Springs, including its well-known gay scene.

In Santa Fe, a night out means a long dinner and then a mezcal on a rooftop as the sun sets over the Jemez Mountains, with a few breweries around the Railyard. For anything bigger, Albuquerque is an hour's drive.

Both towns sit beneath mountains, but Santa Fe's are higher and more varied. Trails climb from town into piñon foothills, and the road above leads to aspen forest that turns gold in autumn and on to the Pecos Wilderness. There is skiing in winter and rafting in the Rio Grande Gorge, with Valles Caldera and Abiquiu's red cliffs further out.

Palm Desert's desert setting is striking in its own way, with steep trails in the Santa Rosa Mountains, palm oases in the Indian Canyons and the boulders of Joshua Tree an hour away. Its outdoor season shuts down in summer, which is exactly when Santa Fe's high country is at its best.

The country around Santa Fe has real depth. There is Taos Pueblo, lived in for about a thousand years, the old Spanish villages of the High Road, Bandelier's cliff dwellings, Los Alamos and the mining villages of the Turquoise Trail. Several living pueblos welcome visitors on feast days.

Palm Desert's outings are lighter: Palm Springs next door, Temecula's tasting rooms, the cool pines of Idyllwild, the old film set at Pioneertown and the painted hillside of Salvation Mountain. Los Angeles and San Diego are better treated as separate trips.

Palm Desert has the stronger hand, mainly because of The Living Desert, a zoo and botanical garden in town that easily fills a morning. Resort pools and slides and the Palm Springs tramway add more, though midday heat in summer is a real limit for small children.

Santa Fe offers a children's museum, the toys and miniatures at the folk art museum, ladders up to Bandelier's cliff dwellings and ski lessons in winter. Gallery browsing and long dinners test young patience, though, and at 2,100m the altitude can tire small children for the first day or two.

In Santa Fe you can leave the car parked for a day. The Plaza, the cathedral, the downtown museums, Canyon Road and the Railyard are all within about twenty minutes of each other on foot, and the Rail Runner train goes to Albuquerque. For pueblos and back roads, though, a hire car is close to essential.

Palm Desert is built for driving. Apart from a few blocks of El Paseo, it is a spread of wide boulevards and gated communities served by slow buses. Easy parking and quiet roads make up for some of that.

Shopping in Santa Fe has a purpose. Native American artists sell silver, turquoise and pottery directly under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, galleries crowd Canyon Road and the Railyard, and the summer Indian Market draws collectors from far away.

Palm Desert is about fashion rather than craft. El Paseo's boutiques and jewellers serve a wealthy winter crowd, a large mall covers the chains, and a designer outlet centre half an hour west draws bargain hunters. Go to Palm Desert for clothes and to Santa Fe for anything made by hand.

Neither is cheap, and they are expensive in different seasons. Palm Desert's resort rates peak in winter and spring, then fall sharply from June to September when the heat empties the town. Chain hotels and rentals offer a cheaper base all year, and golf and spa treatments are where the budget slips.

Santa Fe's costs peak during the summer markets, the opera season and Christmas. Rooms along Cerrillos Road cost less, and hiking, the Plaza and gallery browsing are free. In both places a hire car adds a steady cost.

The Santa Fe Opera is the stand-out. It is a summer festival in an open-sided theatre on a hill, where performances begin at sunset, and it is known for new and rarely staged works. A chamber music festival and a long flamenco tradition add to the summer. In winter, the historic Lensic and the church concerts keep a smaller calendar.

Palm Desert relies on the McCallum Theatre's winter season of touring Broadway shows, ballet and orchestras, plus concerts at the casinos and the arena. Coachella and Stagecoach in nearby Indio are famous, but they fill only a few weekends in spring.

Palm Desert was made for slowing down. Resort spas, pools under the palms, golf and early nights set the pace. Half an hour north, Desert Hot Springs has small spa hotels that fill their pools straight from natural mineral springs.

Santa Fe has its own places to unwind: outdoor soaking tubs among the pines in the foothills, modelled on Japanese onsen, plenty of yoga and massage, and the old bathing resort at Ojo Caliente an hour north. A stay there tends to mix rest with sightseeing rather than make rest the whole point.