Santa Fe or Snowbird?

Neither place has a coast or a beach, so swimming is an outing at best in both. They differ only in what that outing is. Near Santa Fe it is Abiquiu Lake or a float down the Rio Grande. From Snowbird it is the resort's heated pools or the cold Heber Valley reservoirs, while the Great Salt Lake is somewhere to look at rather than swim.

Santa Fe gives you a regional cuisine to explore: red and green chile, posole, blue corn and sopaipillas. You can eat them in old adobe rooms off the Plaza, in a surprisingly ambitious fine-dining tier, or at the long-running farmers' market in the Railyard. The range beyond New Mexican cooking is narrow, but what is there is distinctive.

Snowbird's food is resort food. There are lodge restaurants, slopeside cafeterias and burgers at après-ski, and none of it tastes of anywhere in particular. Guests in search of a proper meal head down to Salt Lake City, about forty minutes away.

Few pairs differ as much as this one. Santa Fe has more than four centuries of history in plain view, with the adobe Plaza, the Palace of the Governors, mission chapels such as San Miguel and Loretto, and a set of museums much richer than its size suggests. Two or three days covers it comfortably.

Snowbird was built from nothing in 1971, and its concrete lodges are designed for avalanches, not for looking at. The canyon's mining past has left almost no trace, so any museum visit means driving to Salt Lake City.

Both places go quiet early, but Santa Fe has at least an evening to offer. That means a long dinner, a mezcal on a rooftop as the sun drops behind the Jemez Mountains, a brewery near the Railyard and a livelier Plaza in summer. At Snowbird the high point is the après-ski deck at the base, and by mid-evening most people are in bed ahead of the first tram. For a real night out, Santa Fe sends you to Albuquerque and Snowbird sends you down a mountain road to Salt Lake City or Park City.

Snowbird has the bigger mountain experience. The tram climbs to Hidden Peak, the canyon gets some of the deepest powder in North America, and the steep terrain runs through Mineral Basin to Alta. In summer it has the Lone Peak wilderness, the wildflowers of Albion Basin and climbing on granite walls.

Santa Fe has more variety than drama. You can walk from town into piñon foothills, see the aspens turn gold below the Pecos Wilderness, explore the red cliffs around Abiquiu and the elk meadows of Valles Caldera, and raft the Rio Grande Gorge. Its ski area is small by comparison, but the mix of desert and mountain is something Snowbird does not have.

Santa Fe is surrounded by places worth the drive. There are the old villages on the High Road to Taos, the thousand-year-old Taos Pueblo, the cliff dwellings at Bandelier, the atomic history of Los Alamos and the mining villages along the Turquoise Trail. A week of outings is easy to fill.

From Snowbird, the obvious trips are to Salt Lake City for Temple Square and to Park City for its Victorian Main Street. Beyond those, Midway, Sundance and Ogden make pleasant afternoons but are not really destinations in their own right.

Both work best for older children, though for different reasons. Santa Fe offers a children's museum, the ladders at Bandelier and the toys in the folk art collection, but the galleries and long dinners will bore younger children. Snowbird suits families who ski, or summer visitors who want the coaster, alpine slide and ropes course on its car-free plaza, but its expert terrain is too much for beginners. In both places the altitude can tire small children for the first day or two.

Both are easy on foot within a small core and hard work beyond it. Santa Fe's Plaza, Canyon Road and the Railyard are a short walk apart, but Museum Hill, the trailheads and the pueblos need a car. At Snowbird the lodges and lifts are steps apart on a base without cars, but everything else depends on one winding canyon road. It jams on powder mornings and avalanche control sometimes closes it for hours.

Shopping in Santa Fe is something to plan a day around. You can buy turquoise and pottery directly from the artists under the Palace portal, browse the gallery cluster on Canyon Road, and find dealers in rugs and Western boots. In summer the Indian Market and Spanish Market draw collectors from far away.

At Snowbird, shopping means a few base stores for rentals, outerwear and resort-branded clothing. Anything more means Salt Lake City's malls or Park City's main street.

Neither is cheap, but Santa Fe is easier on the wallet. Rooms out along Cerrillos Road cost less, and hiking, the Plaza and gallery browsing are free, though the hire car adds up. Snowbird stacks lift tickets, slopeside rooms, rentals and captive-audience meals on top of each other. The main ways to save are a multi-resort pass, a hotel in Salt Lake City with a daily drive up, or a summer visit.

Santa Fe has a cultural calendar worth building a summer trip around. The opera performs in an open-sided theatre as the sun sets over the desert, alongside a chamber music festival and a long flamenco tradition. The Lensic theatre keeps some programme going through winter.

Snowbird offers summer concerts on the plaza, oompah bands at its Oktoberfest and the odd après-ski band. Anything more serious means the drive down to Salt Lake City.

Santa Fe offers more ways to unwind. There are onsen-style tubs among the pines above town, plenty of spas and yoga studios, and the historic mineral pools at Ojo Caliente an hour north. The town's slow pace and quiet adobe courtyards help as well.

Snowbird's version is one large spa on top of the main lodge, with a rooftop pool facing the canyon walls. It is at its best after a hard ski day. For a change, the warm crater at Homestead in Midway is about an hour away.