Phoenix or Santa Fe?

Neither city has a coast, so swimming in both means pools and reservoirs. In Phoenix the resort pool, with its lazy river and slides, is how most of a summer stay is spent, and the Salt River lakes and tubing add an outing among desert cliffs.

Santa Fe has fewer options: a drive to Abiquiu Lake, a float on the Rio Grande, or the hotel pool.

Both cities cook with chile from the borderlands, but in Santa Fe it is a cuisine of its own. Red or green, blue corn, posole and sopaipillas are served in old adobe dining rooms around the Plaza. There is also a fine-dining tier that is unusual for the town's size, and the Railyard farmers' market is worth a morning.

Phoenix's version is Sonoran: carne asada, paper-thin flour tortillas and bacon-wrapped hot dogs from evening carts, along with serious wood-fired pizza. As a large city it has more variety, but eating well usually means a drive between central Phoenix and Scottsdale.

Phoenix has strong individual sights rather than a historic centre. The Heard Museum holds one of the finest Native American collections anywhere, the Musical Instrument Museum is absorbing and Taliesin West shows Frank Lloyd Wright at work in the desert. But there is no old quarter to wander, and each sight means a separate drive.

Santa Fe offers more, and much of it can be seen on foot. The Plaza, the heart of a Spanish colonial capital founded in 1610, is lined by the Palace of the Governors, and the cathedral and the Loretto and San Miguel chapels are a short walk away. The O'Keeffe Museum and the adobe galleries of Canyon Road are close by. Museum Hill, a short ride out, adds the folk art and Native American collections, and two or three days covers it all well.

Phoenix is the place for a proper night out. Old Town Scottsdale has clubs and rooftop bars that fill on weekends, Tempe's Mill Avenue runs on students, and Roosevelt Row offers craft beer and cocktails. The catch is that you pick one district and take a ride home.

In Santa Fe, an evening means a long dinner and a margarita while the sun sets over the Jemez Mountains, and the streets are quiet well before midnight. Anyone wanting a club drives to Albuquerque.

Phoenix's desert mountains are a real draw. Camelback and Piestewa Peak are scrambles right in the suburbs, and South Mountain and the McDowell Sonoran Preserve have long trails through saguaro. But summer heat restricts it all to early mornings.

Santa Fe offers more range. From piñon foothills at the edge of town, the road climbs to aspen forest that turns gold in autumn and on to the Pecos Wilderness. Valles Caldera, rafting in the Rio Grande Gorge and skiing in winter make it an outdoor base in every season.

Santa Fe is surrounded by places worth a day. The High Road runs through Chimayo and Truchas to Taos Pueblo, which has been lived in for about a thousand years. Closer in are the cliff dwellings of Bandelier, Los Alamos, Pecos and the Turquoise Trail villages, and the Rail Runner reaches Albuquerque without a car.

From Phoenix, the distances thin the list out. Sedona's red rocks, hillside Jerome, Prescott and Montezuma Castle lie to the north, and Tucson's mission and adobe barrios to the south, all by car.

Phoenix is set up for children in a way Santa Fe is not. The zoo, the aquarium, the science centre, a children's museum and several water parks cover the main bases, and a spring training baseball game in March makes an easy outing. The costs are long drives across the metro area and summer heat that rules out midday play.

Santa Fe is safe and relaxed, but beyond its children's museum and the ladders at Bandelier it is built around galleries and dinners. The altitude can also tire small children for the first day or two.

Santa Fe's centre can be walked. The Plaza, Canyon Road and the Railyard are within about twenty minutes of each other on foot, though uphill stretches feel steep at altitude. A car is still needed for Museum Hill, trailheads and the pueblos.

Phoenix is one of the most car-dependent cities in the country. The light rail is useful only along the corridor from the airport through downtown to Tempe, so most visitors rent a car from the first day.

Both cities sell Native American silver, turquoise and pottery, but Santa Fe is where serious buyers go. Artists sell directly under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, Canyon Road and the Railyard are packed with galleries, and the summer Indian, Spanish and Folk Art markets draw collectors from far away.

Phoenix wins only on mainstream shopping. Its Scottsdale and Biltmore malls carry the department stores and luxury brands that Santa Fe does without.

Phoenix is the easier place to keep costs down. Rooms fall sharply in summer, freeway chain hotels are good value all year and Sonoran food is cheap, though winter resort prices in Scottsdale are steep.

Santa Fe charges resort prices around the Plaza, especially during the markets, the opera season and Christmas. Staying out along Cerrillos Road helps. Both cities need a hire car, and in both the hiking is free.

Santa Fe has the one performance worth travelling for: the summer opera, staged in an open-sided theatre on a hill as the sun goes down. A chamber music festival and a long tradition of flamenco round out the summer, while winter shrinks to concerts at the Lensic and in the old churches.

Phoenix has a symphony, an opera, a ballet and touring Broadway shows at the round, Wright-designed ASU Gammage, with its season running from autumn to spring. The two calendars complement each other: Phoenix is busy in winter, Santa Fe in summer.

Both cities are good for a rest, but in different ways. Phoenix offers the full desert resort: spas below Camelback with treatments based on sage and agave, several pools and golf, at its best in the dry winter sun.

Santa Fe's version is soaking rather than pampering. It has onsen-style tubs among the pines on the ski road and the old mineral springs at Ojo Caliente an hour north, along with plenty of yoga studios and quiet evenings.