San Diego or Telluride?

San Diego has around 110km of shoreline, including Coronado's broad strand, the Mission Beach and Pacific Beach boardwalk, and the calm, sheltered water of Mission Bay for small children. Its one weakness is the cool Pacific, which only becomes comfortable in late summer.

Telluride sits in a mountain box canyon with no beach at all. The nearest place to swim is a cold reservoir about an hour away, so in summer people raft, paddle or fish instead.

San Diego offers far more choice. Baja-style fish tacos, late-opening taco shops, the Asian kitchens along Convoy Street and dense craft-brewing districts such as North Park make it a city for eating casually and well.

Telluride cooks better than its size suggests, with modern American food based on elk, lamb and trout along Colorado Avenue and up in Mountain Village. There are only a few places, though, and over a week you keep going back to them. Its food is mostly good restaurants, while San Diego's is cheap, varied street eating.

San Diego has more to see. Balboa Park alone fills a day, with its museums of art, natural history and aviation set in Spanish Colonial Revival buildings, and the USS Midway, Old Town's adobes and California's first mission add history around the edges.

In Telluride the town itself is the main sight. Its preserved mining-era streets form a National Historic Landmark, and a museum in the old miners' hospital tells the story of the mines and the labour wars. That gives you a pleasant hour or two, not a day.

San Diego has the livelier evenings, with rooftop bars and clubs in the Gaslamp Quarter, a rowdy beach-bar strip in Pacific Beach, and cocktail bars and taprooms in North Park and Hillcrest. Even so, few people travel there for the nightlife.

Telluride's evenings are après-ski and a few wooden saloons on Colorado Avenue. They fill up in peak ski weeks and on festival weekends, but there are no clubs, and out of season the town goes to bed early.

Both are excellent for the outdoors, but Telluride is more dramatic. Peaks above 4,000m, Bridal Veil Falls and trails to Blue Lake start almost from the main street. Summer brings wildflowers, a via ferrata and jeep roads over the old passes, winter brings skiing, and the aspens turn gold in autumn.

San Diego's outdoors are coastal and gentler: the sandstone bluffs at Torrey Pines, sea lions and kayaking at La Jolla Cove, tide pools and surfing, and winter whale watching. The forested Cuyamaca and Laguna mountains and the Anza-Borrego desert are within a drive. Unlike Telluride, it is comfortable outdoors in every month.

San Diego has more variety within reach. You can take the trolley to Tijuana, drive to Mexico's Valle de Guadalupe wine country or Temecula's vineyards, take the train up the coast to Carlsbad and Encinitas, or go as far as Los Angeles.

Telluride's day trips are few and involve mountain driving: the Victorian mining towns of Ouray and Silverton, ranching Ridgway, and Mesa Verde's cliff dwellings at the very limit of a day out. Winter passes can slow or close the roads.

San Diego gives a family much more to fill the days, and more to fall back on when plans change. If the sea is too cold or the morning is grey, the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla, the Fleet Science Center and the children's museum downtown keep things going indoors, and the city's casual restaurants take young children in their stride. All that choice means a lot of driving, though. The big parks sit at opposite ends of the county, so most days are planned around just one of them.

Telluride works the other way round: there is little to see, but it takes very little effort to get about. The town is small, quiet and safe, the gondola ride is an outing in itself, and the river path, town parks and fishing fill summer afternoons without anyone getting in a car. Indoors there is almost nothing to do, and the thin mountain air often disturbs young children's sleep for the first night or two. It suits families who are happy to spend every day outside.

Telluride is easier once you have arrived. You can cross the historic grid on foot in a quarter of an hour, and the free gondola and buses reach Mountain Village and the ski area, so many visitors never use a car. The difficult part is getting there, through a weather-prone local airport or a long drive.

San Diego is easy to reach, but it sprawls once you are there. Downtown and Little Italy are walkable, and the trolley reaches Old Town and the border. La Jolla, the beaches and the big parks are far apart, though, so most visitors hire a car.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but San Diego has more range. Fashion Valley has luxury brands and department stores, North Park and Little Italy have vintage and design shops, Old Town sells Mexican crafts, and there is a large outlet centre by the border.

Telluride's shopping is a few blocks of galleries, Western clothing, bookshops and ski gear on Colorado Avenue. It is pleasant for an hour's browsing, but it is expensive and has no department stores or markets.

Neither is cheap, but San Diego is far easier on the budget. Taco shops, brewery taprooms, free beaches and Balboa Park's gardens balance out expensive hotels and admission to the big attractions.

Telluride is among the most expensive places to stay in North America. Rooms are scarce and priced for second-home owners, and lift tickets and meals cost more on top. Staying in Ridgway saves money but means driving in every day.

San Diego has more going on through the year. The Old Globe and La Jolla Playhouse are serious theatre companies whose shows have gone on to Broadway, the symphony plays outdoors on the bay in summer, and there is a short opera season.

Telluride's music comes in a summer burst. The Bluegrass Festival in Town Park beneath the canyon walls is famous, and jazz, chamber music and the Labor Day film festival follow it. For the rest of the year there are just a few shows at the Sheridan Opera House.

Both are calm places to slow down, but they offer different kinds of rest. San Diego offers resort spas in La Jolla and Coronado, the long-standing yoga and meditation scene of Encinitas, and unhurried beach mornings.

Telluride offers mountain quiet and spas in the Mountain Village hotels after a day of skiing. It also has something San Diego lacks: the hot springs at Ouray and near Ridgway, about an hour away, where you can soak with views of the peaks.