Palm Springs or Telluride?

Neither place is for a beach trip: Palm Springs is about two hours from the ocean, and Telluride is deep in the mountains. The difference is in how you get into the water. In Palm Springs the hotel pool is the centre of the day for most of the year, while in Telluride swimming means a chilly reservoir near Ridgway, so summer water time is mostly rafting, paddling or fly fishing.

The two eat about equally well, and neither has a cuisine of its own, so both feel repetitive over a week. In Palm Springs, eating out means lazy brunches on shaded patios, poolside cocktails, date shakes from the groves around Indio and simple taquerias further down the valley.

Telluride, despite its tiny size, has a few more ambitious kitchens on Colorado Avenue and in Mountain Village, cooking Colorado lamb, elk and trout, with good craft beer and deep wine lists. Its tables fill fast in festival and peak ski weeks, while many Palm Springs kitchens cut back service in the summer heat.

Palm Springs has far more to see. Its mid-century modern neighbourhoods fill a full day of self-guided touring, from the folded roofs of Twin Palms and Vista Las Palmas to Frey's tramway station and Neutra's Kaufmann House. The Palm Springs Art Museum and the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum round out the visit.

In Telluride, the main sight is the town itself, a preserved mining-boom grid that is a National Historic Landmark. The Historical Museum in the old miners' hospital and the Sheridan Opera House are worth a look. It all makes a pleasant couple of hours rather than a reason for the trip.

Palm Springs has the livelier evenings, though neither town offers a big night out. The LGBTQ bars on Arenas Road, the drag nights and the weekend pool parties make for a sociable, playful scene, and retro cocktail lounges line Palm Canyon Drive.

Telluride's evenings mean après-ski and a few old saloons on Colorado Avenue. They are busy in peak ski weeks and on festival weekends and quiet the rest of the year. Neither town has proper clubs.

Landscape is the main reason to visit both places, but Telluride's is grander and closer to hand. Waterfalls, high basins and peaks above 4,000m start at the end of the main street. Winter brings skiing above town, summer brings wildflowers, biking and jeep roads over the passes, and in autumn the aspens turn gold.

Palm Springs has the tramway up San Jacinto, the palm oases of the Indian Canyons and Joshua Tree an hour away, all at their best from autumn to spring. In summer the heat limits hiking to dawn or the upper mountain, while in Telluride the altitude takes a day or two to get used to.

Palm Springs has more outings within easy reach. You can drive up to Idyllwild in the pines, visit the lived-in film set of Pioneertown, see Salvation Mountain by the Salton Sea or tour the Temecula wineries, and Palm Desert and La Quinta are short hops away.

From Telluride the choices are fewer and further apart. They are mainly the old mining towns of Ouray and Silverton over mountain passes, with Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings at the very limit of a day. Both towns need a car for all of this, and around Telluride winter can close the passes.

The two work about equally well for children, but for different families. Palm Springs is a pool vacation with outings to The Living Desert, the snow at the top of the tramway in winter and the old warplanes at the Air Museum. However, many boutique hotels are adults-only, and from late spring it is too hot to be outside in the middle of the day.

Telluride suits active families, with a well-regarded ski school, the free gondola ride and easy waterfall walks. On the other hand, there is little to do indoors on a wet day, and the altitude can disturb young children's sleep for the first nights.

Telluride is much easier to manage without a car. The town grid takes a quarter of an hour to cross on foot, and the free gondola and buses link it with Mountain Village and the slopes.

Palm Springs has a walkable downtown strip, but you need a car for the tramway, the canyons, the rest of the valley and Joshua Tree, because the valley buses are slow and infrequent. Getting there is the reverse: the Palm Springs airport sits on the edge of town, while Telluride's small airport is often affected by weather and the larger ones are one to two hours away by road.

Palm Springs is the better place to shop, especially for design lovers. The Uptown Design District sells mid-century furniture, lighting and vintage clothing, El Paseo in Palm Desert covers luxury, and the Cabazon outlets are about twenty minutes away. In Telluride, shopping means a few pricey blocks of galleries, Western-style boutiques, bookshops and outdoor gear, which are pleasant to browse but nobody's reason to visit.

Neither is cheap, but Palm Springs is far kinder to the budget. Its winter and spring high season is expensive, but room rates drop sharply in summer, and simple motels keep costs down all year.

Telluride is among the priciest places in North America in every season, from its scarce rooms to lift tickets, ski hire and dinners. The main way to save is to stay in Ridgway and drive in each day, while the free gondola and buses cut transport costs once you are in town.

The two are close here. Both rely on festivals more than a year-round programme, and neither has an orchestra or opera of note. Coachella and Stagecoach take place near Palm Springs each April, the McCallum Theatre and the casinos host touring acts, and in town the typical entertainment is drag cabaret and piano bars.

In Telluride the season is summer: the long-running Bluegrass Festival in Town Park, festivals of jazz, blues and chamber music, and the film festival over Labor Day. The Sheridan Opera House stages concerts and theatre through the year. The music is smaller in scale and more rooted in folk and bluegrass, with the canyon walls as its backdrop.

Palm Springs is made for this. The Agua Caliente bathhouse sits on the spring the town grew from, and the spa motels of Desert Hot Springs fill their pools with mineral water straight from the ground. Days settle into a routine of pool, late breakfast and an evening drink, which makes unwinding easy.

Telluride is calm too, and Mountain Village has full hotel spas, but its hot springs at Ouray and near Ridgway are about an hour's drive away. The altitude can also make the first nights restless.