Santa Fe or Tucson?

Neither city is a beach destination, and they lack one in different ways. From Santa Fe, summer swimming means a drive of about an hour to Abiquiu Lake or a float down the Rio Grande. Tucson's nearest sea is at Puerto Peñasco in Mexico, a good four hours away, and the pools in Sabino Canyon only appear after the rains. In practice the resort pool matters more in Tucson, where the long hot season makes it the main way to cool off.

Both cities are worth visiting for one regional Mexican-rooted cuisine, and neither offers much variety beyond it. Santa Fe's is New Mexican cooking, built on red or green chile, blue corn, posole and sopaipillas, with chiles roasting outside the markets in autumn. It also has a fine-dining tier that is unusual for a town of its size, and the Railyard farmers' market is worth a morning.

Tucson's cuisine is Sonoran: carne asada over mesquite, paper-thin flour tortillas and the bacon-wrapped hot dog from south-side carts. That gives it more casual street eating than Santa Fe, and old family kitchens line South 12th Avenue. Fine dining is thinner, but the brewpubs are better.

Santa Fe has much more to see. The whole centre is the sight: low adobe streets around the Plaza, the Palace of the Governors, the cathedral and the Loretto Chapel's spiral staircase. Museum Hill and the O'Keeffe Museum add collections far beyond what a small city would usually have.

Tucson has one outstanding monument, the painted and gilded Mission San Xavier del Bac. Barrio Viejo, the Arizona State Museum and the aviation collections round out the list. Away from these the city is spread out and has fewer places of real character to walk through.

Tucson gives you more to do after dark. Fourth Avenue's dive bars and patios and Congress Street's cocktail bars and rooftops are within walking distance of each other, and term-time weekends are lively, though quieter in summer. Santa Fe's evenings usually end with a mezcal while the sun sets over the Jemez Mountains, and the streets are quiet well before midnight.

Both cities have outstanding landscapes, but they are different kinds. Santa Fe is mountain country: piñon foothills, aspen and spruce forests that turn gold in autumn, and the Pecos Wilderness, with Valles Caldera, rafting in the Rio Grande Gorge and Abiquiu's red cliffs further out.

Tucson is ringed by Sonoran Desert. Saguaro National Park lies on both sides of the city, Sabino Canyon has good trails, and on Mount Lemmon the road climbs from cactus to pine within an hour. Its road cycling and birdwatching have a wide following. The two cities' outdoor seasons also differ: summer and autumn suit Santa Fe best, while Tucson is at its best from autumn to spring.

Santa Fe has the stronger list of day trips. Taos Pueblo is a World Heritage Site that has been lived in for about a thousand years. Bandelier's cliff dwellings, the High Road villages of Chimayo and Truchas, and Ghost Ranch are all within a long morning's drive. The Rail Runner train even reaches Albuquerque without a car.

Tucson's outings are varied and fun: Wild West Tombstone, the Victorian mining town of Bisbee, the artists' village of Tubac and the wineries at Sonoita. None of them, though, is a place of the first rank, and each one needs a car.

Tucson is easier with children. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Reid Park Zoo, the Flandrau planetarium, the air and space museum and the old western film set give younger children plenty to do from October to April. Pools and Mount Lemmon help in summer.

Santa Fe is safe and relaxed but was not built with children in mind. The children's museum and the ladders at Bandelier are highlights. The altitude can tire small children at first, so it suits families with older children who like hiking and history.

Santa Fe is easier to get around. The Plaza, the downtown museums, Canyon Road and the Railyard are all within about twenty minutes' walk of each other, so a lot of a stay needs no transport at all. Tucson's walkable core is small and linked by a single streetcar line, and nearly everything visitors come for lies on the edges of the city or beyond. Both need a hire car for anything further out, but Tucson needs one from the first day.

Santa Fe is the more serious place to shop, and its focus is art. Native American artists sell silver, turquoise and pottery under the portal of the Palace of the Governors. Canyon Road and the Railyard are packed with galleries, and the summer Indian, Spanish and Folk Art markets draw collectors from far away.

Tucson's high point is the winter gem and mineral show. Otherwise there are Tohono O'odham baskets, Mexican folk art, Tubac's galleries and Fourth Avenue's vintage shops, which are pleasant but a smaller selection.

Santa Fe is the dearer of the two. It is a small town with resort-town costs, and they peak during the summer markets, the opera season and Christmas, which are exactly when many visitors want to come. Much of what it does best is free, though: the foothill trails, the Plaza and an afternoon browsing the Canyon Road galleries. Rooms out along Cerrillos Road also cost less.

Tucson is reasonable for an American city and cheaper than the larger cities of the Southwest. Its rates climb through the mild winter, above all during the weeks of the gem show, and fall sharply in the summer heat, which is just when Santa Fe's markets and opera push prices up there. The extras are where the money goes, with American prices and tipping at sit-down restaurants and steep rates at the desert golf and spa resorts. In both cities, plan for the cost of a hire car from the start.

Santa Fe has the stronger programme, and it is concentrated in summer. The Santa Fe Opera performs in its open-sided theatre as the sun sets over the desert. A chamber music festival and a long flamenco tradition add to it, while winter brings little more than touring shows at the Lensic.

Tucson's season runs the other way, from autumn to spring. It has the symphony, Arizona Opera productions shared with Phoenix, the restored Fox Theatre and deep mariachi roots. It is a solid local programme, but not something to plan a trip around.

Tucson is slightly better for a dedicated wellness stay. It is one of the original homes of the American destination spa, and resorts in the Catalina foothills and around Oracle offer full programmes with pools facing the mountains, in mild winter sun.

Santa Fe has what Tucson lacks: water from the ground. There are onsen-style tubs among the pines on the road to the ski area, and the mineral springs at Ojo Caliente are about an hour north. Its yoga studios and healers, and its early, quiet evenings, make it an easy place to unwind as well.