Park City or Stowe?

Neither town is anywhere near a coast, so swimming is a summer extra in both. Park City has the least to offer. There is Jordanelle Reservoir down the valley, with sandy swimming areas and picnic lawns but cool water, and most visitors only get in the water in hotel pools and hot tubs.

Stowe has a little more choice. Locals cool off in rocky swimming holes along the mountain streams, and there are state-park beaches on Waterbury Reservoir and Lake Elmore, where the lake warms to about 22°C in July and August. It still only makes a break between hikes, not a reason to go.

The two eat about equally well for small resorts, but in different styles. Park City's meals are polished and meaty: elk, bison, trout and steak on Main Street and at the resort bases, with whiskey on slopeside decks after skiing. For cheaper meals you mostly fall back on the chains at Kimball Junction.

Stowe's food comes from the Vermont countryside: farm cheddar, maple syrup, cider doughnuts and some of the country's most sought-after hazy IPAs. Its farm-to-table dining rooms and taverns along Mountain Road feel more local, though the choice thins out in the quiet weeks.

Neither town is a cultural trip, but Park City has the more substantial story to tell. Its silver-mining past is still visible in the old headframes and tramway towers above Main Street. The Park City Museum, in the old city hall with its basement jail cells, covers that history, and the 2002 Winter Games left museums beside the working jumps at the Olympic Park.

Stowe offers mostly a pretty picture: the church steeple, clapboard buildings and covered bridges, plus a small ski museum and the von Trapp family's hillside estate. Either town is covered in an afternoon.

Park City has more to do at night. After the slopeside decks empty, Main Street's run of saloons and cocktail bars, a few with DJs or bands, can get lively on winter weekends, although everything closes long before the small hours.

Stowe winds down sooner. Evenings mean base-lodge bars and brewery taprooms, there are no clubs, and the valley is quiet by about midnight. A proper night out means Salt Lake City from one and Burlington from the other.

Both towns exist for the mountains, but Park City has the bigger terrain. Its two ski areas rise straight from town at about 2,100m, Park City Mountain is among the largest in North America, and dry Utah powder falls all winter. Alta, Snowbird, Brighton and Solitude are about an hour away over the ridge. In summer, lift-served mountain biking and fly fishing on the Provo and Weber rivers take over.

Stowe's Mount Mansfield is lower and its snow is typical of the northeast, often cold and icy. Its strengths are of a different kind: a big cross-country and snowshoe network, the Long Trail, the boulder-filled pass of Smugglers' Notch, and an early October foliage season that is the main reason many people come.

Day trips are about level, and in both towns you will want a car for them. What you get is quite different. From Park City the big outing is a real city, Salt Lake City, with Temple Square and the State Capitol, plus the Heber Valley's steam railway and Midway's Swiss-style chalets.

From Stowe the trips are to small New England places: lakeside Burlington, the excellent Shelburne Museum with its historic buildings and lake steamboat, and gold-domed Montpelier.

Park City is the easier of the two with children. Free buses take you to well-run ski schools without loading car seats, and the Olympic Park adds an alpine coaster, ziplines and freestyle skiers landing in a splash pool. The altitude can tire small children for the first day or two.

Stowe also has good beginner terrain and a large ski school, and in summer there are sugarhouses, farm animals and the flat river path for pushchairs. But its purpose-built family resort over Smugglers' Notch is a long drive round in winter, and every outing involves the car.

This is where the two differ most. In Park City you can manage without a car: free buses link Old Town, both ski bases and Kimball Junction, and Main Street is walkable if steep. Parking is awkward anyway, so a car often isn't worth having, at least until you want to visit other valleys.

Stowe stretches about 11km along one valley road. Its winter shuttle and the summer recreation path help, but a car is essential for trailheads, swimming holes and simply getting there from Burlington. In winter that means snow tyres and steep, icy roads.

Park City is better for browsing. Main Street's art galleries, cowboy-boot and Western-wear shops, jewellers and upscale ski fashion make a pleasant afternoon, and Kimball Junction has an outlet centre.

Stowe's shopping is smaller and more homespun: pottery, woodwork and wool in craft shops, and maple syrup and cheddar to take home. That makes it better for gifts than for fashion.

Both are expensive resorts, but Park City costs more. Its slopeside lodging, lift tickets and Main Street dinners sit at the top of the North American market, and many budget skiers stay in Salt Lake City or the Heber Valley and drive up.

Stowe is a little easier on the wallet, especially in spring and November when prices fall sharply. Valley motels, brewery food and the free trails also help a careful budget. Foliage season in October is as expensive as the Christmas weeks.

Both towns have modest arts calendars, and summer is the best season in each. Park City has a little more: the 1920s Egyptian Theatre stages comedy and plays all year, and the Utah Symphony plays outdoor concerts on the Deer Valley lawns.

Stowe has a performing arts centre at Spruce Peak for touring acts, summer community theatre, and hillside concerts that follow the von Trapp family's musical tradition.

The two are evenly matched for unwinding, and in both towns that mostly means resort spas and outdoor hot tubs in the snow. Park City has one thing Stowe lacks: the Homestead Crater in nearby Midway, a geothermal spring inside a limestone dome where you can swim or snorkel in water at about 35°C.

Stowe's appeal is the slower pace. Spa weekends in the quiet seasons, country inns with wood fires and a valley that goes still at dusk make it the more natural choice for a restful couples' break.