Palm Springs or San Jose?

Neither city is built for the beach, but San Jose at least has one within reach. Santa Cruz, Capitola and the sheltered coves of Monterey Bay lie about 45 minutes over the mountains and have a real seaside-town feel, even if the cold Pacific means wetsuits or paddling rather than swimming.

In Palm Springs the coast is two hours away, so swimming means the hotel pool, and that pool is a central part of any stay.

San Jose is the better place to eat, provided you are willing to drive for it. Its large Vietnamese community fills east-side strip malls with pho and banh mi, and there are serious taquerias, Korean and Indian cooking along the corridors towards Sunnyvale, and old family places in Japantown.

Palm Springs is more about the setting than the cooking. Expect long patio brunches, poolside cocktails and safe American menus on Palm Canyon Drive. The date shakes from the Indio groves and the Mexican panaderias further down the valley are the local touches worth seeking out.

Palm Springs has the edge because it has a single, clear subject. Albert Frey's buildings, the Kaufmann House and the folded roofs of the Alexander tract homes can be toured by bike in a day, and the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum adds the story of the Cahuilla people.

San Jose offers a scattering of oddities instead: the maze-like Winchester Mystery House, Egyptian antiquities at the Rosicrucian museum and Silicon Valley's own story at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. They make good stops, but they never add up to a historic centre.

Both towns have small scenes that close early, and the difference lies in their character. Palm Springs centres on the LGBTQ bars of Arenas Road, with drag nights, sociable patios, retro cocktail lounges and hotel pool parties at spring weekends.

San Jose's nights are more about sport and beer. San Pedro Square fills before games at the arena, and the SoFA strip has dive bars and a few dance clubs. For anything bigger, people head up to San Francisco.

Palm Springs comes out slightly ahead because of how dramatic the scenery is right on its doorstep. The tramway lifts you from the desert floor into pine forest and winter snow. Palm oases hide in the Indian Canyons, and Joshua Tree's boulders and night skies are an hour away. The catch is summer, when the heat restricts hiking to dawn or the mountain top.

San Jose's outdoors is gentler and usable all year. There are redwood groves at Big Basin and Henry Cowell, oak foothills at Alum Rock, and kayaking among sea otters on Monterey Bay.

This is where San Jose pulls well ahead. San Francisco is a train ride away, Stanford and Berkeley are close, and Monterey, Carmel and Santa Cruz each make a full day by the sea. Napa and Sonoma are possible on a longer day.

The outings from Palm Springs are charming but small: the pine village of Idyllwild, the Western film set at Pioneertown and the eerie shores of the Salton Sea. Los Angeles and San Diego are too far for a comfortable day out.

San Jose keeps children busier. It has the rides at Great America, the gentle zoo at Happy Hollow, a discovery museum and IMAX dome downtown, and further afield the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The mild weather also means outdoor days rarely have to be cancelled.

Palm Springs has some good outings, including the Living Desert, the tramway to the snow and the warplanes at the Air Museum. But many of its boutique hotels are adults-only, and the midday heat from late spring onwards limits what children can do.

Both are car towns, but San Jose has more to fall back on without one. Light rail runs through the valley, and Caltrain is a dependable link to Palo Alto and San Francisco, although the freeway traffic at rush hour has to be planned around.

In Palm Springs only the downtown strip is walkable. The canyons, the tramway and Joshua Tree all need a car. Its one real convenience is an airport right on the edge of town.

The two are fairly even, but they suit very different shoppers. Palm Springs is the place for collectors, with mid-century furniture, lighting and vintage clothing in the Uptown Design District, plus the large outlet centres at Cabazon nearby. San Jose is mainstream and efficient, with a huge regional mall and an open-air boutique street on the west side covering the international brands, along with Asian supermarkets and Japantown shops that are fun to browse.

Palm Springs is the cheaper of the two, though it is by no means cheap from winter into spring. Summer changes the picture, when rooms fall dramatically for anyone who can take the heat, and simple motels are always an option.

San Jose is expensive throughout. Hotels are geared to business travellers, so weekend stays are the one reliable saving, and the low-key Vietnamese and Mexican eateries are where meals stay reasonable.

The two are broadly level, but their programmes look very different. Palm Springs is about big occasions and camp. The Coachella and Stagecoach festivals fill the Indio polo grounds each April, the casinos book well-known acts, and the most characteristic evenings in town are drag cabaret and piano bars, with almost nothing on in summer.

San Jose has resident companies instead. Opera San José performs in the restored California Theatre, and there is a city symphony and Broadway tours. Its summer jazz festival brings stages to the downtown streets just when the desert goes quiet.

Here Palm Springs is far ahead. You can soak in the sacred Agua Caliente spring at its downtown bathhouse, or in the naturally hot pools of the Desert Hot Springs spa motels. The pace of the town, from late breakfasts to sunset over San Jacinto, is designed for unwinding.

San Jose has hotel spas, a few Korean-style bathhouses and the calm of the Hakone gardens, but the city itself runs to the rhythm of the working week.