Steamboat Springs or Tucson?

Neither city has anything to offer a beach lover, and they lack it in different ways. In Steamboat a midsummer dip means a cold mountain reservoir such as Steamboat Lake or Stagecoach, or floating through town on an inner tube down the Yampa.

In Tucson the water you will actually swim in is a hotel pool, which is welcome in the desert heat. The nearest sea is at Puerto Peñasco, about four hours away across the Mexican border, so it is no day trip.

Tucson is the city to choose for eating. Its Sonoran Mexican cooking is a reason to go in its own right: mesquite-grilled carne asada, paper-thin flour tortillas and bacon-wrapped hot dogs from south-side stands, with the most traditional family kitchens along South 12th Avenue. Desert ingredients like tepary beans and prickly pear add something you will not find elsewhere.

Steamboat eats like a ski resort, with steakhouses, Colorado lamb and beef and brewpubs on Lincoln Avenue and at the mountain base. It is satisfying after a day outside, but the choice is narrow and there are no markets or street food to explore.

Tucson has enough sights for two or three days. The most important is Mission San Xavier del Bac, an 18th-century church with one of the finest painted interiors in the country. Add the adobe row houses of Barrio Viejo and El Presidio, the Native American collections at the Arizona State Museum and the hundreds of aircraft at the Pima Air & Space Museum.

Steamboat's story of ranching and skiing takes about a morning: the old western storefronts on Lincoln Avenue, the Tread of Pioneers Museum and the historic ski jumps of Howelsen Hill.

Tucson has the livelier evenings, though still a modest scene. Students fill the dive bars and patios of Fourth Avenue, and Congress Street, a short walk away, adds cocktail bars, rooftops and a few dance floors. Warm nights outdoors are a big part of the appeal.

In Steamboat, nights out follow the ski lifts. Après-ski starts at the gondola base as the slopes close, then moves to the saloons and brewpubs downtown. Outside the peak weeks the town is asleep before midnight.

Both cities are built for the outdoors, but Steamboat comes out ahead because its landscape works in every season. There is powder skiing and snowshoeing in winter, and in summer a wide network of bike and hiking trails, fly fishing on the Yampa, alpine lakes in the Mount Zirkel Wilderness, and elk and moose along the way.

Tucson's scenery is just as striking in a different way: saguaro forests on both sides of the city, canyon trails in Sabino and Catalina State Park, and the drive up Mount Lemmon from cactus to pine forest. Serious road cycling and sky-island birdwatching add to it. The desert summer heat, though, cuts the best of it back to the cooler months or the early morning.

Tucson wins easily here. Within two hours are the Wild West streets of Tombstone, the Victorian hillside mining town of Bisbee, the artists' village of Tubac with the Tumacácori mission ruins beyond, the Sonoita wineries and Biosphere 2. You need a car for all of them.

Steamboat is too isolated for this. The nearby ranching hamlets are worth a coffee stop at most, Vail is about two hours over the passes, and nearly every outing ends up in the hills rather than in another town.

Both suit families about equally well, but the days look very different. Steamboat is a vacation for active children: a well-regarded ski school with gentle slopes, slides and a climbing wall at the Old Town Hot Springs, tubing and waterfall walks in summer, all in a small, safe town. It has no zoo, aquarium or science museum to fall back on, and the altitude can wear out young children for the first day or two.

Tucson has exactly the indoor and animal attractions Steamboat lacks: the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum with its mountain lions, Reid Park Zoo, the Children's Museum, a planetarium and an old western film set. They are spread across a wide city, though, and the summer heat confines families to pools for much of the day.

Steamboat is the simpler place to get about. Downtown is flat and easy to walk, a town bus links it to the ski base, and many slopeside lodgings put you within walking distance of the gondola. You still need a car for Strawberry Park, the lakes and the passes, and in winter that means driving mountain roads in snow.

Tucson is built for the car. One streetcar line serves the downtown, Fourth Avenue and university core, but the national park, the Desert Museum and Mount Lemmon all need a hire car. At least the traffic is light and parking is easy.

Tucson gives shoppers more to look for, mostly crafts of the region: Native American silver jewellery, Tohono O'odham baskets, pottery and Mexican folk art, plus vintage shops on Fourth Avenue. The winter gem and mineral show, which fills hotels across the city, draws collectors from all over the world.

Steamboat's shopping is a short walk along Lincoln Avenue, past western-wear shops, galleries and ski stores. The historic outfitter F.M. Light & Sons, with its boots and hats, is worth seeing as a landmark as much as a shop.

Tucson will cost you noticeably less. Hotels are moderately priced for the Southwest, the taquerías keep meals cheap, and summer brings real bargains for anyone who can handle the heat. The hire car and the luxury resorts are where the money goes.

Steamboat is expensive at any time of year and most of all in ski season, when lodging, lift passes, equipment hire and dinners all carry resort prices. A self-catering condo and the free trails help, and late spring and autumn are cheaper, though some places close then.

Tucson has the fuller programme, mostly from autumn to spring. There is a symphony orchestra, Arizona Opera and the Arizona Theatre Company, touring Broadway shows at Centennial Hall and concerts at the restored Fox Theatre and the Rialto. A strong mariachi tradition runs underneath it all.

Steamboat's music happens in summer. The long-running Strings Music Festival puts on chamber music, jazz and bluegrass in its pavilion, free concerts play outdoors and Perry-Mansfield stages student theatre and dance, but winter evenings offer little beyond bands in the bars.

Steamboat has the better way to unwind, and it comes from the ground itself. Mineral springs gave the town its name, the Old Town Hot Springs pools are used by locals all year, and the rock pools at Strawberry Park, up a creek valley outside town, are at their most memorable on a snowy night.

Tucson offers something different: the well-established destination spa, with fitness, massage and meditation programmes at resorts in the Catalina foothills. It suits a quiet, sunny winter retreat, but there is no public bathing tradition at all.