San Diego or Santa Fe?

There is no real contest here. San Diego has about 110km of coast, from the flat sands of Coronado and the surfers' boardwalk at Pacific Beach to the calm, sheltered water of Mission Bay, where small children can paddle. The Pacific stays cool outside late summer.

Santa Fe is a high desert town far from any sea. The nearest thing to a beach day is a drive to Abiquiu Lake or a float on the Rio Grande, and most visitors swim only in a hotel pool.

Both cities eat well, but their styles hardly overlap. San Diego's food is casual and shaped by the border: Baja fish tacos, late-night taco shops, fresh seafood and a craft-beer scene built on West Coast IPAs. Convoy Street adds Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese kitchens.

Santa Fe has a regional cuisine of its own, with red and green chile, blue corn, posole and sopaipillas served in old adobe dining rooms. It also has more fine dining than most towns its size. There is far less variety, so choose Santa Fe for depth in one tradition and San Diego for range.

Santa Fe has the stronger and more coherent heritage. The whole centre keeps its adobe look around a Plaza laid out under Spanish rule in 1610, with the Palace of the Governors, old chapels and the cathedral close together. Museum Hill and the O'Keeffe Museum hold collections well beyond what a town this size would suggest.

San Diego gathers most of its museums in Balboa Park, where a single day covers them, and adds the USS Midway, the adobes of Old Town and the first of California's missions. It is a decent list, but more scattered and less distinctive.

San Diego has the livelier evenings by some way. The Gaslamp Quarter offers rooftop bars and dance clubs and Pacific Beach a rowdy student bar strip. North Park and Hillcrest have quieter cocktail bars and taprooms, and Hillcrest is the centre of the city's gay scene.

Santa Fe winds down early. A typical evening is a long dinner, a margarita on a rooftop at sunset and perhaps a brewery near the Railyard, and then the streets go quiet. Anyone wanting clubs has to drive to Albuquerque.

Both are fine bases for the outdoors, but one faces the ocean and the other the mountains. San Diego's outdoors is mostly coastal: surfing, kayaking into La Jolla's sea caves past seals and sea lions, clifftop trails at Torrey Pines and grey whales offshore in winter. Forest and desert lie an hour or more inland.

Santa Fe has high country at its edge. Trails lead into the Sangre de Cristo foothills, the aspens turn gold in autumn, the Pecos Wilderness lies beyond, and there is skiing in winter. Add rafting in the Rio Grande Gorge and the red cliffs around Abiquiu, though the altitude asks more of walkers.

Santa Fe has the richer list of outings, and much of it is very old. The High Road to Taos passes Spanish villages such as Chimayo on the way to Taos Pueblo, which has been lived in for about a thousand years. Bandelier's cliff dwellings, Pecos and Ghost Ranch are all within a drive.

San Diego offers variety rather than heritage: a trolley ride to Tijuana, the vineyards of the Valle de Guadalupe or Temecula, apple pie in Julian and beach towns up the coast by train. In both places most trips need a car.

San Diego is one of the easiest cities in the country to bring children to. The zoo in Balboa Park, the Safari Park, SeaWorld, Legoland and the Birch Aquarium could fill a fortnight, and restaurants and hotels expect families. The main thing to plan for is the driving between them.

Santa Fe has a children's museum, the toys in the folk art collection and the ladders at Bandelier, but most days there are spent in galleries and over long dinners. At 2,100m the altitude can tire small children at first, so the town works better with older children who like hiking.

In both cities the centre is walkable and almost everything else needs a car. San Diego's downtown, the Gaslamp and Little Italy are easy on foot, and the trolley runs to Old Town and the border. The beaches, La Jolla and the theme parks, though, are spread far apart.

Santa Fe's historic centre is smaller, with everything within about twenty minutes' walk, though the altitude makes the slopes feel steeper. Buses are infrequent, so a hire car is close to essential for pueblos and trailheads.

Santa Fe is the better place to shop, as long as you are looking for art or craft. Native American artists sell silver, turquoise and pottery under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, and Canyon Road and the Railyard are packed with galleries. The summer Indian, Spanish and folk art markets draw collectors from far away.

San Diego has more conventional shopping, with luxury brands at Fashion Valley, an outlet centre by the border and boutiques in Little Italy and North Park. Beyond the Mexican crafts in Old Town and the surf shops, little of it is unique to the city.

Neither city is cheap, but the costs fall in different places. In San Diego the big expenses are beach and downtown hotels and admission to the zoo, SeaWorld and Legoland, offset by free beaches and taco shops.

In Santa Fe the money goes on hotels around the Plaza, especially during the summer markets and the opera season, and on restaurants aimed at well-off visitors. Lodging out on Cerrillos Road, free hiking and gallery browsing help. In both cities a hire car adds to the bill.

The two are evenly matched but strong in different arts. San Diego is a theatre town, with the Old Globe's outdoor Shakespeare stage in Balboa Park and the La Jolla Playhouse, which has sent shows to Broadway, plus a summer symphony season on the bay.

Santa Fe's draw is opera. Its summer festival plays in an open-sided theatre as the sun sets over the desert, alongside chamber music and flamenco. Outside summer its calendar is thinner than San Diego's.

Santa Fe is the more restorative choice. It has outdoor soaking tubs among the pines in the foothills, the historic hot springs at Ojo Caliente an hour north, and plenty of spas and healers for a town its size. Quiet adobe courtyards and early nights make slowing down easy.

San Diego has no bathing tradition. Its calm comes from resort spas in La Jolla and Coronado, yoga in Encinitas and unhurried beach-town mornings, though downtown and Pacific Beach are far from peaceful.