Santa Fe or Sun Valley?

Neither place is a beach destination, but Sun Valley comes slightly closer in summer. Redfish Lake under the Sawtooths has a real sandy shore, even if the water stays cold, and the resort's heated outdoor pools are a reliable place to swim.

In Santa Fe, swimming mostly means a hotel pool. Abiquiu Lake or a float on the Rio Grande are occasional outings about an hour away.

Santa Fe has a cuisine worth travelling for. New Mexican cooking, with red and green chile, blue corn, posole and sopaipillas, is served in old adobe dining rooms near the Plaza, and there is also a fine-dining tier and the long-running farmers' market in the Railyard.

Sun Valley eats well for a small resort, from Ketchum's après-ski grills to a few kitchens cooking trout, lamb and elk, but it has no local tradition to discover, and some places cut back in the quiet seasons. Neither town offers much international variety.

Here the two are furthest apart. Santa Fe has four centuries of history in its adobe streets: the Palace of the Governors on the Plaza, old mission churches, the folk art and Native American collections on Museum Hill and the O'Keeffe Museum, enough for two or three full days.

Sun Valley's story is shorter and narrower. It covers the 1936 resort with the world's first chairlifts, the film-star photographs in the Lodge and Hemingway's grave in Ketchum, and an afternoon is enough to see it all.

Both are early-night places, and Santa Fe edges ahead. It has sunset margaritas on rooftops facing the Jemez Mountains, a few breweries around the Railyard and livelier summer evenings on the Plaza, and Albuquerque is an hour's drive away for a bigger night out.

In Sun Valley, evenings revolve around après-ski in Ketchum's saloons and wine bars, with the odd band on a winter weekend. Outside the main seasons, the town goes quiet soon after dinner.

Both sit at the foot of serious mountains, but Sun Valley is the more complete outdoor destination. Bald Mountain rises straight out of Ketchum with long, steep runs, and in summer the same slopes become a network of singletrack. Add fly fishing on the Big Wood and at Silver Creek and the Sawtooth lakes an hour north.

Santa Fe's outdoors offer more variety but less depth. Trails climb into the Sangre de Cristo foothills and the Pecos Wilderness, and in the other direction lie desert mesas, Valles Caldera and the red cliffs around Abiquiu. Its summers are hotter, so outings start early.

Santa Fe is surrounded by places to go. You can take the High Road through Chimayo and Truchas to Taos Pueblo, or visit the cliff dwellings at Bandelier, Los Alamos, the pueblo ruins at Pecos and the old mining villages on the Turquoise Trail, though most need a car.

From Sun Valley, outings head into the wild rather than to other towns. Hailey's historic main street and the log-cabin outpost of Stanley are the main stops, and Shoshone Falls is about two hours' drive south.

Neither town is built around children, and both work best for families with older, active children. What differs is how the days are filled. In Sun Valley it is skiing on a separate beginners' hill, bike paths, horse rides and the outdoor rink. Santa Fe offers the Children's Museum, the toys in the folk art collection and the ladders at Bandelier, along with long gallery visits and dinners that young children may find slow.

In both places the altitude can tire toddlers at first, and Sun Valley adds hard midwinter cold.

Both centres are easy on foot, and both are hard to explore beyond the centre without a car. In Santa Fe, the Plaza, the museums, Canyon Road and the Railyard are all within about twenty minutes' walk of each other, and the Rail Runner reaches Albuquerque, but local buses are infrequent.

Sun Valley has a free bus linking Ketchum, the village and the lift bases, plus a bike path running the length of the valley, so you can manage a ski week without a car. Trailheads and the Sawtooths still need a drive.

Santa Fe is a real shopping destination for art and craft. Native American jewellery and pottery are sold under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, galleries pack Canyon Road, and the big summer markets draw collectors from far away.

Sun Valley's few blocks in Ketchum offer galleries, good ski and fly-fishing shops and some upmarket boutiques, but the range is narrow. Neither town suits a fashion or department-store trip.

Neither is cheap, but Santa Fe is easier on a budget. Rooms out along Cerrillos Road cost less, and hiking, the Plaza and gallery browsing are free, although a hire car adds to the bill.

In Sun Valley, the second-home crowd sets the price of rooms, meals and lift access, and there is little budget lodging anywhere in the valley. Coming in the quiet spring or autumn and using the free buses help only a little.

Santa Fe is the stronger of the two for live performance. Its summer opera, staged in an open-sided theatre on a hillside as the sun sets over the desert, is known far beyond the region for rare and new works, and a chamber music festival and a long flamenco tradition add to the summer programme. Outside the season, the historic Lensic theatre and choral concerts in the old churches keep a smaller calendar going.

Sun Valley's season is shorter and almost entirely summer. A full orchestra plays free concerts on the lawn by the lodge, and figure skaters perform on the outdoor rink in the evenings, a tradition from the resort's early years. For the rest of the year there is very little.

Santa Fe's calm is gentler and more cultivated. It has onsen-style tubs among the pines on the road to the ski area, a lot of spas, yoga studios and healers for a town its size, and the historic mineral springs at Ojo Caliente an hour north.

Sun Valley's version is rougher and more alpine. Hotel pools steam in the falling snow, and the undeveloped hot springs beside the creek in the Warm Springs valley are reached by a dirt road. In neither place is soaking part of daily life in town.