Redwood National Park or Yellowstone?

Neither is a beach destination, but Redwood National Park at least has a shoreline worth visiting. Gold Bluffs Beach, Enderts Beach and the coves around Trinidad are wide, wild and good for long walks, even though the cold sea and sneaker waves rule out swimming. In midsummer the clear pools of the Smith River make a real place for a swim after a hike.

Yellowstone is far from any ocean. The lake stays dangerously cold, and the thermal pools are scalding and off limits. A quick summer dip in the Firehole River canyon is about as close as you get.

Seafood gives Redwood National Park the better table, though only at its southern edge. Humboldt Bay oysters and Dungeness crab supply a small group of good restaurants in Arcata and Eureka, and Trinidad's harbour is the place for fresh fish by the water. Near the groves themselves you get diners, smoked-fish shacks and picnics.

Yellowstone's meals come from the dining rooms of the historic lodges, cafeterias and the steakhouses of the gateway towns. The local flavours are bison burgers, trout and huckleberry pie. The serious cooking is in Jackson or Bozeman, a long drive away, and kitchens in the park close early.

Yellowstone has more to show for its history. As the world's first national park, founded in 1872, it has the great log-and-stone Old Faithful Inn, the Roosevelt Arch and the army buildings of Fort Yellowstone at Mammoth. The Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody is a proper museum of Plains Indian culture and Western art, about an hour beyond the east entrance.

Redwood's heritage is quieter and of a different kind. The rebuilt Yurok plank-house village at Sue-meg State Park tells the story of the coast's first peoples. Eureka's Victorian Old Town and the Carson Mansion are worth a half day, and you can walk out to Battery Point Lighthouse at low tide.

Both are quiet after dark, but Redwood National Park has slightly more on offer. An hour south, Arcata's students keep a few bars and brewpubs going around the plaza. In Yellowstone the day starts at dawn with wildlife watching, so a drink in a lodge lounge or a gateway-town saloon that empties early is about all there is.

Both are among the great natural landscapes of North America, and they differ in kind. Redwood National Park is about forest and coast: groves of redwoods over 100m tall at Stout Grove and Tall Trees, the fern-hung walls of Fern Canyon, Roosevelt elk in the meadows and grey whales passing offshore.

Yellowstone has more variety and more drama. You get geyser basins, Grand Prismatic Spring, the canyon and Lower Falls, and a cast of animals that includes wolves and grizzlies in Lamar Valley. It also offers something Redwood cannot: winter trips by snowcoach through steaming, frozen basins.

Redwood National Park has more outings within easy reach. Trinidad's headland harbour, Arcata's plaza, Eureka's waterfront and the painted Victorian dairy village of Ferndale form a cluster along the coast to the south. The southern Oregon harbour towns lie just to the north.

From Yellowstone, every outing is a long day for one stop. The choice is Jackson's Western square and wildlife art museum, Buffalo Bill's Cody, Bozeman, or the Beartooth Highway up to Red Lodge. Most visitors simply stay inside the park.

Yellowstone tends to thrill children more. A geyser erupting on schedule, belching mud pots and bison beside the road are hard to beat, and the short boardwalks and Junior Ranger badges keep young ones involved. The cost is hours in the car and constant watching near thermal pools and wildlife.

Redwood National Park is gentler and easier to manage, with flat loop trails, Fern Canyon to scramble through, the gondola into the forest near Klamath and the canopy walkway at Eureka's zoo. The cold, unsafe sea and frequent rain, with little to do indoors, are its weak points.

Both need a car, but driving is far easier at Redwood National Park. The parks run about 70km along the coast highway and the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway, traffic is light and the main groves are a short drive apart. Only the gravel roads to Stout Grove and Fern Canyon slow you down.

Yellowstone's Grand Loop is about 230km of slow road, where bison on the tarmac and full car parks at Old Faithful can cost you whole hours. The airports are an hour or two from the entrances, and from early November to late April the interior is closed to cars.

Shopping is a sideline at both, and what differs is the local craft. Around Redwood that means redwood burl carvings and chainsaw sculptures along the highway, Native basketry and jewellery, and the bookshops and antique stores of Eureka. Around Yellowstone it means cowboy boots, hats and wildlife bronzes in Cody and Jackson, plus fly-fishing tackle in the gateway towns.

Redwood National Park is clearly the cheaper trip. Entry is free, the redwood campgrounds are inexpensive, and Crescent City motels cost far less than rooms near the famous parks. Because the sights are close together, you also spend less on fuel.

In summer, Yellowstone's lodges and gateway motels charge well above what their comfort justifies, and Jackson is among the most expensive small towns in the country. Camping, picnic lunches and travelling in spring or autumn bring the cost down a good deal.

Neither has much of a stage, and the little there is differs in style and timing. At Redwood the occasional concert or touring act comes through Arcata's university during term, with a small symphony in Eureka. Around Yellowstone the summer offers a nightly rodeo in Cody and the Grand Teton Music Festival's classical season near Jackson.

Redwood National Park is the more restful of the two. The hush of the old-growth groves and evenings with no traffic noise are restful in themselves, and Arcata has hot tubs and saunas to rent. Neither has real spas.

What Yellowstone has instead is soaking. Its open-air hot-spring pools near Gardiner and in Paradise Valley are a lovely end to a day of driving. The park itself is busy in July and August, so real calm means early mornings or September and October.