Scottsdale or Winter Park, Colorado?

Neither is a beach destination, and both are a long way from any sea. What differs is the water. Scottsdale's swimming happens in warm resort pools, at the sandy coves of Saguaro and Canyon Lakes, and on summer tubing trips down the Salt River. In Winter Park the lakes around Grand Lake and Granby stay cold from snowmelt, so water time means paddling, a hotel pool or the hot springs pools down the valley.

Scottsdale gives you far more choice: steakhouses, patio grills, sushi and long brunches around Old Town, plus Sonoran Mexican cooking with green chile and huge flour tortillas, and Phoenix's better tables a short drive away.

Winter Park feeds a ski or hiking day well enough with burgers, barbecue, breakfast burritos and a couple of brewery taprooms, and a few dinner rooms serve elk and mountain trout. It has no regional cuisine to seek out, and on winter weekends you need to book a table early.

Scottsdale has the sights worth planning a day around. Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's UNESCO-listed desert studio, is the highlight, and the city adds a museum of western art, a small contemporary art museum and a gallery district. The Heard Museum and the Musical Instrument Museum are both close by.

Winter Park grew up around a ski area, so its heritage is limited to the railway story of the Moffat Tunnel and a ranch museum in Fraser. For a day of museums you have to go to Denver.

Scottsdale has a real night out: Old Town's few blocks of rooftop lounges, sports bars and dance clubs run loud until 2am at weekends, with dress codes and bottle service. Winter Park's evenings are après-ski, crowded base-village bars and taprooms right after the lifts close, and then the town goes quiet as skiers head to bed for first chair.

Winter Park is the stronger outdoor base and is open all year. In winter there are the groomed runs of Winter Park and the steep trees and bumps of Mary Jane, plus cross-country track and the backcountry on Berthoud Pass. In summer you get a lift-served bike park, forest singletrack, the Indian Peaks, and moose and elk in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Scottsdale's landscape is desert: saguaro and granite trails in the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, short steep climbs up Camelback and Pinnacle Peak, and longer routes in the Superstitions. It is superb in winter, but in summer you can only hike at dawn.

The wider choice of outings is from Scottsdale. One long day north takes in Sedona's red rocks, the Montezuma Castle cliff dwelling and the hillside mining town of Jerome. Tucson and the San Xavier mission are a similar distance south, and Goldfield and the old Apache Trail make an easy half-day. Only the Grand Canyon really needs a night away.

Winter Park's outings are fewer and shorter. Lakeside Grand Lake and the springs at Hot Sulphur Springs are reached up the valley without a high pass. Georgetown, Idaho Springs and a city day in Denver all mean crossing Berthoud Pass, which winter storms can slow or close.

Both work well for children, in very different ways. Scottsdale is a resort vacation, with lazy rivers, water slides and kids' clubs, plus the miniature railway park, the aquarium and butterfly house, and spring training games. The catch is that everything needs a drive, and summer afternoons are too hot to be outside.

Winter Park offers a large children's ski school, tubing, sleigh rides and a summer alpine slide, all in a village small enough to walk. The drawbacks are the altitude, which can disturb the first night or two, sharp cold, and little to do indoors on a bad day.

Winter Park is easier without a car, at least for a ski week: a free shuttle links the ski base, the town and Fraser, and the base village is walkable. You still need wheels for trailheads and the national park, and for the winter drive over Berthoud Pass unless you take a shuttle.

Scottsdale is long, narrow and built along wide arterial roads that the light rail never reaches. Apart from compact Old Town and its free trolley, plan on a hire car or ride-hailing, though driving there is simple.

Scottsdale is a real shopping destination. A luxury mall with the big fashion houses, open-air centres further north, and the Main Street and Marshall Way galleries all sit within reach, as do serious dealers in turquoise, Native American silver, pottery and western boots. Winter Park's shops cover ski tuning, bike repairs and forgotten gloves, and for anything else you go to Denver.

Neither is cheap in high season, but Scottsdale gives a careful budget more room. Its motels and business hotels along the main roads and its cheap Mexican food across the metro area are easy fallbacks, and the resorts cut their rates hard in the hot summer.

Winter Park's winter bill stacks up fast, with lift tickets, rentals, lessons and resort-priced meals and few cheap places to eat. Condos with kitchens in Fraser help, and summer is much cheaper. Its low season is also its mild one, while Scottsdale's savings come with 40-degree heat.

Scottsdale and its neighbours can fill several evenings: chamber music, jazz and dance at the Old Town arts centre, world music at the Musical Instrument Museum's theatre, and the symphony, opera, ballet and touring Broadway in Phoenix and Tempe. In Winter Park the offer is free summer concerts in the town park and a band in an après-ski bar, with no theatre or concert hall at all.

Scottsdale is built for pampering. Its large resort spas offer desert-themed treatments, outdoor pools and steam rooms, many are open to day guests, and the pace revolves around long lunches and early nights.

Winter Park's rest comes from the outdoors: an evening hot tub after skiing, a massage for sore legs, and the terraced mineral pools of Hot Sulphur Springs above the Colorado River. That natural bathing is something Scottsdale cannot offer, but it is a simpler kind of relaxing, best in the quiet weeks of late spring and autumn.