Salt Lake City or San Diego?

For Salt Lake City, water is a side note. Floating in the Great Salt Lake off Antelope Island is a novelty you try once, on a muddy shore with flies in summer. Real lake swimming means driving up to reservoirs like Jordanelle or Pineview on a hot day.

San Diego is built around its coast. Coronado's wide, flat sand, the boardwalk of Mission and Pacific Beach and the quieter cliff-backed beaches of Encinitas and Del Mar give you a different beach every day, with calm Mission Bay for toddlers. The Pacific is cool, though, so most people swim in late summer and wear wetsuits the rest of the year.

San Diego is the better place to eat. It has Baja fish tacos, California burritos stuffed with fries, taco shops open late in every neighbourhood, Convoy Street's long run of Asian kitchens and one of the country's densest clusters of craft breweries. Nobody comes for famous chefs, but casual meals are consistently good.

Salt Lake City's own specialities are more of a curiosity: fry sauce, pastrami burgers, fried scones and drive-through 'dirty' sodas. Its best meals come from the Mexican, Pacific Islander and Peruvian places along State Street. Utah's liquor rules also make wine and cocktails harder to find.

Neither city is a great museum destination, but San Diego has a little more to fill the days. Balboa Park gathers art, natural history, air and space and the Museum of Us among its ornate exposition buildings, and the USS Midway, Old Town's adobes and California's first mission add history by the water.

Salt Lake City's sights centre on its founding faith. Temple Square's temple, domed Tabernacle and gardens, the Beehive House and the Family History Library are the core, with the Capitol and the dinosaur halls around them. It is distinctive, but two days covers it.

Salt Lake City is the quieter of the two after dark. A few downtown bars and dance clubs, the Granary District breweries, Sugar House pubs and a long-standing gay bar scene are fine for a drink after a day in the mountains. Still, Utah's liquor laws and a city that goes to bed early mean big nights out are rare.

San Diego gives you more choice. The Gaslamp Quarter's rooftop bars and dance clubs and the rowdy beach-town strip of Pacific Beach keep going until the 2am last call. North Park and Hillcrest have neighbourhood cocktail bars, and Hillcrest is the centre of the gay scene, but these quieter areas wind down well before closing time.

Salt Lake City has the stronger outdoors. The Wasatch rises straight from the edge of town to peaks over 3,000m, with world-class ski terrain in winter and alpine lakes, climbing and mountain biking in summer. To the west are Antelope Island's bison and the white expanse of the Bonneville Salt Flats.

San Diego's outdoors is mainly coastal: Torrey Pines bluffs, sea lions and sea caves at La Jolla Cove, tide pools at Cabrillo, surfing and winter whale watching. Its mountains and the Anza-Borrego desert are an hour or more inland and lower and gentler than the Wasatch.

San Diego has the better range of outings, and the border is what makes it unusual. You can take the trolley to Tijuana, drive to the Valle de Guadalupe vineyards, visit Temecula's wineries, eat apple pie in Julian and take the train up to the North County beach towns, with Los Angeles in reach.

From Salt Lake City, Park City's Victorian Main Street, Swiss-styled Midway and Ogden's old railroad street are pleasant, and the Golden Spike site appeals to history fans. Utah's famous national parks are too far for a day and need an overnight stay.

Both cities suit children, but San Diego is in a different league. Its zoo is one of the world's best, and the Safari Park, Legoland, SeaWorld and the Birch Aquarium give you a big day out for every day of a week, in weather that rarely spoils outdoor plans.

Salt Lake City's welcome is just as genuine. Restaurants expect large families, and the city feels clean and safe. Hogle Zoo, the Living Planet Aquarium, Lagoon's roller coasters and resort ski schools are good, but they work at a smaller scale. In both cities the attractions are spread out, so you need a car.

Getting around is about equally easy in both, and in both you will want a car beyond the centre. Salt Lake City's rail is more useful to visitors: TRAX runs straight from the airport to downtown and the University, and FrontRunner reaches Ogden and Provo. Its huge blocks and wide streets, though, make walking feel slow.

San Diego's centre is the easier one on foot. Downtown, the Gaslamp, Little Italy and the waterfront are close together, and the trolley runs to Old Town and the border. La Jolla, the beaches and the theme parks are far apart, and buses are slow.

Salt Lake City's shopping is best where its outdoors is. Its local ski, climbing and camping shops are excellent and the best reason to browse there. Otherwise it has the City Creek Center mall, Trolley Square in its old streetcar barns and independent shops around 9th and 9th.

San Diego's shops are spread across more places, which makes it better for general browsing. Fashion Valley has the luxury brands, a large outlet centre sits by the border, La Jolla's village streets have galleries and upmarket clothes, and Old Town sells Mexican pottery and crafts. It still has no single great shopping street.

Salt Lake City is the cheaper stay. Downtown hotels are reasonably priced, everything on Temple Square is free, and light rail costs little. Winter changes that, because lift tickets, equipment hire and canyon lodging are expensive, so a summer hiking trip is much cheaper than a ski week.

San Diego costs more nearly everywhere. Beach and downtown hotels are expensive, especially in summer, and the zoo, Safari Park, SeaWorld and Legoland all charge high admission. Taco shops, free beaches and Balboa Park's gardens help keep costs down.

The two cities are about equal on stage, with different strengths. Salt Lake City is about music. The Tabernacle Choir's open rehearsals and broadcasts, daily organ recitals, the Utah Symphony, Utah Opera and Ballet West give it an arts life larger than its size would suggest.

San Diego's strength is theatre. The Old Globe's outdoor Shakespeare stage in Balboa Park and the La Jolla Playhouse have both sent shows on to Broadway, and the symphony plays its summer season on an open-air stage by the bay.

San Diego is the easier place to unwind, mainly because of the pace of daily life there. It has resort spas in La Jolla, Coronado and Carlsbad, a long-standing yoga culture in Encinitas, and sunset walks in mild weather.

Salt Lake City's best option is a soak in the warm mineral water of the Homestead Crater, about an hour away in Midway. Otherwise relaxing means a resort or Park City spa after a day on the slopes.