Redwood National Park or Yosemite?

Neither is a place to swim, and the water you find is different in kind. Redwood has a real coast, with Gold Bluffs Beach, Enderts Beach and the coves near Trinidad, but the Pacific is cold and sneaker waves make it a shore for walking and driftwood hunting. Its swimming happens in the clear summer pools of the Smith River.

Yosemite has no sea at all. A late-summer float on the Merced River, the icy sandy shore of Tenaya Lake or the warmer resort water of Bass Lake just outside the park are the options, and its hot summer afternoons make a dip more welcome.

Redwood eats better, mostly because of its southern edge. Humboldt Bay oysters, Dungeness crab in season, the Saturday farmers' market on Arcata's plaza, a solid craft-beer tradition and fresh fish by the harbour at Trinidad give you a few meals worth looking forward to.

In Yosemite you eat in lodge dining rooms, cafeterias and pizza counters, with the grand historic dining room in the Valley as the one special setting. The gateway towns add diners and a few Sierra foothill wine bars. In both parks a picnic on the trail is often the best meal of the day.

Nobody visits either for its sights, but Redwood has slightly more to fill a rainy afternoon. You can see Yurok and Tolowa heritage at the rebuilt plank-house village in Sue-meg State Park, walk out to Battery Point Lighthouse at low tide, and see the Victorian Old Town and the elaborate Carson Mansion in Eureka.

Yosemite's heritage is concentrated in the Valley. It has the rustic grand hotel, the Yosemite Museum with its Ahwahneechee Miwok basketry, and Ansel Adams's photographs, plus the stagecoach-era Pioneer History Center at Wawona. Each takes an hour or two.

Both are early-night places, but Redwood at least has a fallback. An hour south, Arcata's student bars and brewpubs around the plaza and the pubs of Eureka's Old Town offer company over a drink, though not late.

In Yosemite an evening means a drink in a lodge lounge or one saloon in a gateway town, and the Valley is quiet soon after dark. The high-country stars are the main event.

These are two of the great natural landscapes of the American West, and they are very different. Redwood is horizontal and enclosed: old-growth groves where the trees pass 100m and the light comes through fog, the fern walls of Fern Canyon, Roosevelt elk at Gold Bluffs and whales passing the Coastal Trail. The walking is mostly gentle and shaded.

Yosemite is vertical and exposed. Granite walls rise about 1,000m from the Valley floor, the waterfalls roar in spring, and climbers spend the summer on El Capitan. Steep classics like the Mist Trail and Half Dome lead on to the alpine lakes of Tuolumne, and in winter you can ski at Badger Pass. It also has its own big trees in the giant sequoias of Mariposa Grove.

The outings differ in character more than in quality. From Redwood they are small coastal towns you can reach all year: Trinidad on its headland, Arcata and Eureka, the painted Victorian dairy village of Ferndale, and the harbour towns over the border in Oregon.

Yosemite's outings have more history and wine. There is the gold-rush main street at Columbia, the steam railway yard at Jamestown and the wineries around Murphys. In summer you can cross Tioga Pass to the ghost town of Bodie and to Mammoth Lakes, but snow closes that eastern side for much of the year.

Both work for outdoor families and neither is built around children. Redwood offers flat loop trails, wading the creek in Fern Canyon, elk in the meadows, a gondola and giant carved figures near Klamath, and the canopy walkway at Eureka's zoo. Rain and a dangerous cold sea are the drawbacks.

Yosemite's flat Valley floor has paved cycle paths and short walks to Lower Yosemite Fall, and the sequoias impress children of every age. Cliff edges, fast spring rivers, bears and long winding drives call for closer supervision.

Redwood is easier to cover. You need a car, but the parks sit along about 70km of lightly used US-101 and the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway, and the main groves are short drives apart. Only the gravel roads to Stout Grove and Fern Canyon slow you down.

Yosemite works the other way round. The Valley can be done without a car, thanks to free shuttles, bike paths and a regional bus from the train at Merced. Glacier Point, Mariposa Grove and Tuolumne are each an hour or more of winding road away, though, and you can expect entrance queues, full car parks in summer and Tioga Road closed by snow for much of the year.

Shopping is an afterthought in both, but Redwood gives you a little more to take home. There are redwood burl carvings and chainsaw sculptures along US-101, galleries and bookshops in Eureka's Old Town, and basketry and jewellery by Native artists in Arcata and Eureka. Yosemite has park stores, outfitters in the gateway towns and a Valley gallery selling fine-art landscape prints.

Redwood costs noticeably less. Park entry is free, the state campgrounds are inexpensive, and motels in Crescent City undercut lodging near the famous parks. The main fixed costs are a hire car and fuel.

Yosemite is expensive in season. Its few in-park rooms sell out early at high prices, gateway motels charge peak rates all summer, and food inside the park is poor value. Cheap campsites exist but are hard to secure. A winter visit or a foothill base narrows the gap.

Redwood has the better of two thin offers, though all of it is an hour south of the groves. During term, Arcata's university brings in touring acts, concerts and student productions, and Eureka has a small symphony, community theatre and a few rooms for live bands.

Yosemite has ranger campfire talks and the occasional one-person historical performance in the Valley. Beyond that there is a repertory theatre down in Sonora and summer concerts in the foothill towns, which is too little to plan an evening around.

Neither is a spa destination, but Redwood is the more restful place. The hushed old-growth groves invite forest bathing, nights are free of traffic noise, and Arcata has hot tubs and saunas you can rent by the hour.

Yosemite has more formal treatments at resort hotels near the southern entrance and open-air hot springs around Mammoth Lakes and Bridgeport in summer. The Valley in July, though, is busy rather than calm, and real quiet means winter or the high country.