Palm Springs or Phoenix?

Neither city is a beach destination. Both are inland desert towns and the swimming happens in pools. In Palm Springs the pool is the centre of nearly every hotel and rental house, and the ocean is about two hours away over the mountains.

Phoenix adds some open water you can drive to. The Salt River reservoirs, such as Saguaro Lake and Canyon Lake, have small beaches among desert cliffs, and tubing down the river is a summer tradition. Its family resorts also have lazy rivers and water slides.

Phoenix eats better, and the reason is the Sonoran borderlands: carne asada, machaca, very thin flour tortillas and bacon-wrapped hot dogs, along with good wood-fired pizza and bread. Central Phoenix and Roosevelt Row have the more interesting independent places, and Scottsdale covers steakhouses and resort dining, though you will drive between them.

Palm Springs is more about long patio brunches and poolside cocktails than serious meals, and its mid-range American places along Palm Canyon Drive are reliable but limited. Its own treats are the date shake from the groves around Indio and the taquerias further down the valley.

The two are level, but what you see differs. Palm Springs is a place to look at buildings. You can spend a day driving or cycling past Albert Frey's houses, Neutra's Kaufmann House and the Alexander homes with their folded roofs, and Modernism Week each February draws design enthusiasts.

Phoenix is a city of museums instead. The Heard Museum's Native American collection and the Musical Instrument Museum are the highlights, and Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West gives it one major piece of architecture of its own.

Phoenix has more nightlife, spread across separate districts. Old Town Scottsdale has proper clubs and rooftop bars, Mill Avenue in Tempe runs on students, and downtown has craft beer and cocktail bars with a more local crowd.

Palm Springs has a smaller, more sociable scene centred on the long-established LGBTQ bars of Arenas Road, with drag nights and patio drinking, plus retro cocktail lounges on Palm Canyon Drive. It is good company for an evening, but there are hardly any clubs and most nights end early.

Both have desert mountains close at hand, but Palm Springs has the more dramatic setting. The aerial tramway rises from the desert floor to pine forest and winter snow on Mount San Jacinto, the Indian Canyons and Tahquitz Canyon hide palm oases and a waterfall, and Joshua Tree is about an hour away.

Phoenix's mountains sit among the suburbs: South Mountain, the scramble up Camelback and the saguaro forest of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. Sedona's red rock country is about two hours north. It is excellent hiking country, but it lacks the climb from desert to alpine forest that Palm Springs offers.

From Phoenix you have more choice, with places that feel quite different from one another. Jerome is an old copper town on a hillside and Prescott has a Western square, Montezuma Castle is an ancient cliff dwelling on the way to Sedona, and Tucson's adobe barrios and Mission San Xavier del Bac are under two hours south.

The outings from Palm Springs are fewer and more quirky. Idyllwild is a village in the pines and Pioneertown is a lived-in film set, while Salvation Mountain and the abandoned resorts sit on the Salton Sea, with Temecula's wineries a little further. Both cities need a car for all of it.

Phoenix is the better choice with children. A zoo, an aquarium, a science centre, a children's museum and several water parks are all in the metro area, spring training games make for an easy afternoon, and the hotels are spacious and welcome families. Expect long drives between them.

Palm Springs works for a family pool vacation with a few outings, such as the Living Desert, the tramway and the Air Museum. The town leans towards adults, though, with adults-only boutique hotels and cocktail-driven social life, so families tend to stay in the big resorts further down the valley.

Both need a hire car, but the problems differ. In Palm Springs the downtown strip is small and flat enough to walk, bikes suit the mid-century neighbourhoods in cool weather, and the airport is at the edge of town. The canyons, the tramway and Joshua Tree still need a car.

Phoenix is spread out over a vast grid, with Scottsdale, Tempe and the trailheads far apart. Its light rail line covering the airport, downtown and Tempe is the one useful public option, which Palm Springs lacks.

Phoenix has a little more range, mostly in Scottsdale malls with international brands plus galleries and Western wear in Old Town. Its distinctive buy is Native American work such as Navajo and Zuni silver, Hopi katsina carvings and rugs, best bought from museum shops and reputable galleries.

Palm Springs does one thing better: mid-century modern furniture, lighting and vintage clothing in the Uptown Design District. For bigger shopping trips there are El Paseo's luxury shops and the Cabazon outlets nearby.

Phoenix is somewhat easier on the budget. Chain hotels along the freeways stay good value all year, Sonoran Mexican food is cheap and good, and much of the hiking is free.

Palm Springs costs more in its winter and spring high season, when pool houses and boutique hotels charge resort prices and festival weekends push them higher. In both places summer rooms fall sharply, and in both a hire car adds to the bill.

The two are close, with different kinds of live entertainment. Palm Springs is about drag cabaret and piano-bar singing in town, with touring shows at the McCallum Theatre and casino concerts in the valley. Each April, Coachella and Stagecoach fill the polo grounds at Indio, half an hour away.

Phoenix has the regular institutions of a large city instead: the symphony, Arizona Opera, Ballet Arizona and Broadway tours at Wright's round ASU Gammage. In both cities the programme largely stops in summer.

Palm Springs is clearly the better place to unwind, because the town grew up around a hot spring. You can soak at the bathhouse over the sacred Agua Caliente spring, and the small spa motels of Desert Hot Springs fill their pools with hot mineral water straight from the ground. Quiet streets and evenings as the light turns pink on San Jacinto add to it.

Phoenix and Scottsdale offer the big-resort version: full spas, golf and treatments using sage, clay and agave at the foot of Camelback. There is no public bathing culture or spring to visit, though, and outside the resorts the pace is that of a sprawling city.