Santa Fe or Vail?

Neither town has anything resembling a beach, so on this count they are level. The difference lies in the summer water: Santa Fe has Abiquiu Lake about an hour north and floats on the Rio Grande, while Vail's small mountain lakes stay cold even in July. In both, a swim usually means the hotel pool.

Santa Fe has a cuisine of its own, and that sets it well apart. New Mexican cooking, from carne adovada and posole to the red-or-green chile question at every table, fills old adobe dining rooms around the Plaza, and a fine-dining tier and the long-running Railyard farmers' market round it out.

Vail offers polished resort dining instead: steakhouses, fondue rooms, sushi and lodge lunches on the mountain, with elk, lamb and trout on many menus. It is well executed but has no local tradition behind it, and many kitchens shut in the spring and autumn lulls. Both are weak on street food and cheap eating.

This is where the two are furthest apart. Santa Fe's adobe centre, the Palace of the Governors, the Loretto and San Miguel chapels, the folk art and Native American collections on Museum Hill and the O'Keeffe Museum fill two or three days with genuine history and art.

Vail's chalet village is a 1960s homage to the Tyrol rather than an old town. The Colorado Snowsports Museum, with its story of the Tenth Mountain Division, and the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens make a pleasant hour or two, and that is about the extent of it.

Vail has the livelier evenings, though only in season. After the lifts close, the terraces and slopeside bars of Vail Village and Lionshead fill up, and on winter weekends a few bars and a small club stay open past midnight; out of season the town goes quiet after dinner.

Santa Fe's evenings revolve around a long meal and a margarita or mezcal on a rooftop as the sun drops behind the Jemez Mountains, with a few breweries near the Railyard. Clubbing barely exists, and anyone wanting more drives to Albuquerque.

Both sit in superb country, but Vail is the more complete mountain base. Its ski area, with front-side runs, the open Back Bowls and Blue Sky Basin, is on another scale, and summer brings gondola-served trails, wilderness peaks above 4,000m, mountain biking and fly fishing on Gore Creek and the Eagle River.

Santa Fe wins on variety rather than scale. Trails climb from the town's edge into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and the Pecos Wilderness, while to the west lie desert mesas, the elk meadows of Valles Caldera, the red cliffs around Abiquiu and rafting in the Rio Grande Gorge. Its ski area is small by comparison.

Santa Fe has far more within reach. The High Road through Chimayo and Truchas leads to Taos Pueblo, lived in for about a thousand years, and Bandelier's cliff dwellings, Pecos, Ghost Ranch and the Turquoise Trail villages each make a distinct outing. Albuquerque is even reachable by the Rail Runner train.

From Vail the options are mostly other mountain towns: Beaver Creek, Breckenridge's Victorian main street and the silver-boom streets of Leadville. Glenwood Springs, about an hour down the canyon, is the best day out, and both towns need a car for almost everything.

Vail suits families better, as long as the trip centres on the mountains. Large ski schools, gentle learning areas and a car-free village make winter easy, and in summer the gondola top has a coaster, ropes courses and tubing.

Santa Fe offers a children's museum, the toys and miniatures in the folk art collection and the ladders at Bandelier, but its days of galleries and long dinners suit older children more than small ones. Both sit high enough to tire young children at first, and neither has a zoo or aquarium worth the trip.

Once there, Vail is the easier place to be without a car. The village and Lionshead are pedestrian, the lifts start in town and a free bus runs the length of the valley, so a week on foot and by bus is normal. The catch is arrival, with no passenger rail and a mountain pass that can close in snow.

Santa Fe's historic core is just as walkable, with the Plaza, Canyon Road and the Railyard close together, but the town sprawls beyond it and buses are infrequent. Museum Hill, trailheads, the pueblos and Taos all point towards a hire car.

Santa Fe is the far more interesting place to shop. 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 Market, Spanish Market and Folk Art Market draw collectors from afar.

Vail's lanes sell upmarket ski clothing, fur, jewellery and mountain landscapes to a wealthy resort crowd. It is fine for ski gear or a luxury souvenir, but narrow, and serious shoppers go to Denver. Neither has much fashion or department-store shopping.

Both are expensive, but Vail is in a class of its own. Lift tickets, ski school, equipment hire, slopeside lodging and resort meals stack up quickly, and only off-season rates or staying down the valley soften the bill.

Santa Fe is pricey for its size, especially around the Plaza in summer and at Christmas, yet much of its appeal costs nothing: the Plaza, gallery browsing and foothill hiking. Cheaper rooms along Cerrillos Road help, though the hire car adds up.

Both towns come alive for music in summer, and Santa Fe has the edge. The Santa Fe Opera, in its open-sided theatre with sunset over the desert, has a reputation for rare and new works, joined by a chamber music festival and a deep-rooted flamenco tradition, and the Lensic and the old churches keep a modest programme going through winter.

Vail answers with Bravo! Vail, bringing major orchestras to the open-air Gerald R. Ford Amphitheater, plus the Vail Dance Festival and a late-summer jazz festival. Outside July and August, though, it is down to après-ski bands.

Santa Fe has the edge for a restful trip. It has natural mineral springs at Ojo Caliente, about an hour north, and onsen-style soaking tubs among the pines on the road to the ski area. It also has more yoga studios, massage therapists and healers than a town its size would usually have, and its early, quiet evenings help.

Vail's version is the hotel spa: massage after a day on the slopes, saunas, steam rooms and outdoor hot tubs under the peaks. For natural hot water, visitors drive about an hour down the canyon to the pools and vapour caves at Glenwood Springs.