Phoenix or Winter Park, Colorado?

Neither is a beach destination, and both are far from any sea. In Phoenix, water means the Salt River reservoirs such as Saguaro Lake and Canyon Lake, summer tubing on the lower Salt River and, above all, resort pools with lazy rivers and slides.

In Winter Park the lakes around Grand Lake and Granby stay snowmelt-cold even in July and suit paddling more than swimming. A swim there usually means a hotel pool or the hot springs pools west down the valley.

Phoenix has a cooking tradition of its own: the Sonoran Mexican food of carne asada, machaca, paper-thin flour tortillas and bacon-wrapped hot dogs. It also has a strong name for wood-fired pizza and bread. The catch is distance, since the best independent places in central Phoenix and on Roosevelt Row usually mean a drive.

Winter Park serves ski-town staples: lodge burgers and green chile, pizza, barbecue, brewery pints and a few dining rooms for steak, elk and trout. It keeps a hungry skier going, but there is nothing regional to seek out, and tables fill early on winter weekends.

Phoenix has no old centre, but it has real museums. The Heard Museum's Native American collection and the Musical Instrument Museum are the highlights, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West is the architectural one, and the Hohokam ruins at Pueblo Grande cover older history. Each is a separate drive.

Winter Park has almost nothing of this kind beyond the railway story of the Moffat Tunnel and the small ranch museum in Fraser. A culture day from there means the trip to Denver.

Phoenix offers a real choice: clubs and rooftop bars in Old Town Scottsdale, student drinking on Tempe's Mill Avenue, and craft beer and cocktails downtown and around Roosevelt Row. Each area means its own ride-hail, though, and the bars shut at 2am.

Winter Park is après-ski and little else. The base-village bars are packed when the lifts close and a few pubs and taprooms carry on along the main road. The town is quiet by late evening, because most of the crowd wants to be on the first chair.

Phoenix has rocky desert mountains inside the city: South Mountain, the Camelback scramble and the saguaro trails of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, with the red rock around Sedona further out. It is superb from October to April, but summer heat limits hiking to the early hours.

Winter Park is the stronger base for the outdoors, and it works in both seasons. Its two linked mountains give a long ski season, and in summer the slopes become a celebrated lift-served bike park. The Indian Peaks and the moose and high tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park are about an hour away.

Phoenix has the broader spread of day trips, always by car. To the north are hillside Jerome, Prescott's Western square, the Montezuma Castle cliff dwelling and Sedona. To the south is Tucson, with its adobe barrios and the white Mission San Xavier del Bac.

The list from Winter Park is shorter: the Victorian mining streets of Georgetown and Idaho Springs over Berthoud Pass, the boardwalk at Grand Lake, and Denver for museums. In winter the high pass can close, so plans depend on the weather.

Both suit families, in quite different ways. Phoenix is a winter city break with a zoo, an aquarium, a science centre, water parks, pool resorts and spring training baseball in March. Expect plenty of driving, and summer heat that is risky for small children.

Winter Park is a compact ski village with a large children's ski school and gentle slopes at the base. Winter adds tubing and sleigh rides, and summer an alpine slide and easy bike trails, all within walking distance or a free shuttle ride. The trade-offs are altitude headaches on the first nights, sharp cold and little to do indoors on a wet day.

Phoenix is built for the car. It is a flat grid of wide roads where the light rail between the airport, downtown and Tempe covers only one corridor and walking is limited to small cores, so most visitors rent a car.

Winter Park is far easier without one. The base village is walkable and a free shuttle runs to town and Fraser, so a ski week needs no driving. Trailheads, Grand Lake and the national park are the exceptions, and the drive up from Denver crosses a high pass.

Phoenix is the place to shop: a luxury mall and the galleries and Western wear of Old Town Scottsdale, plus Navajo and Zuni silver and turquoise, Hopi katsina carvings and rugs from museum shops and reputable galleries. Winter Park offers ski tuning, bike parts and outdoor clothing, which is useful for a forgotten pair of gloves and not much more.

Phoenix is the cheaper stay, especially in summer when resort rooms drop sharply. Chain hotels on the freeways and Sonoran Mexican food are good-value fallbacks all year, and the main extra cost to plan for is a rental car.

A ski-season stay in Winter Park is expensive across the board, from lift tickets and lessons to resort-priced meals. Condos in Fraser with kitchens bring the cost down, and summer is far kinder to the budget.

Phoenix has symphony, opera and ballet seasons, and touring Broadway shows play ASU Gammage, Frank Lloyd Wright's round auditorium in Tempe. The Musical Instrument Museum's small hall and the rock venues in Tempe and downtown add concerts, mostly from autumn to spring. Winter Park has free summer concerts in the town park and après-ski bands the rest of the year, so a proper performance means an evening in Denver.

Phoenix is a classic place for a resort rest. Large spa resorts stand below Camelback Mountain and through north Scottsdale, with several pools, golf and treatments made from desert ingredients, all at their best in the dry warmth of winter. It costs resort money, and there are no public baths.

Rest in Winter Park is simpler: mountain air, a condo hot tub after a day outside and a few spas for tired legs. Its best card is Hot Sulphur Springs, about half an hour west, where mineral pools step down a hillside above the Colorado River. It is most restful in the quiet weeks of late spring and autumn.