Taos or Telluride?

Neither town has anything for a swimmer. Both are high in the mountains and hundreds of kilometres from the sea. The water you do find is for rafting or fishing, not bathing.

Where they differ is the kind of water on offer. In Taos it is the Rio Grande gorge and riverside hot springs. In Telluride it is a cold reservoir near Ridgway, an hour's drive away.

The two eat about equally well, but they eat very differently. Taos has a cuisine of its own: red and green chile, posole, carne adovada and Pueblo horno bread, cooked in old family-run places along the road to Ranchos.

Telluride has no regional cooking to compare with that. What it has is resort money, which pays for polished modern American kitchens using elk, trout and Colorado lamb, along with deeper wine lists. Choose Taos for local flavour and Telluride for a smarter dinner. In both towns a week brings you back to the same few tables.

Taos is far ahead here. Taos Pueblo is a UNESCO-listed adobe village that has been lived in for around a thousand years, and the San Francisco de Asís church at Ranchos is one of the most painted buildings in the American West. The Harwood, Millicent Rogers and Fechin collections show the art colony that grew up here. Together they make two or three good days.

Telluride's culture is the town itself. It is a nineteenth-century mining grid with a small museum in the old miners' hospital and the Sheridan Opera House. It is pleasant to wander, but it takes little more than a morning.

Neither place keeps late hours, but Telluride has a little more going on after dark. In peak ski weeks and on festival weekends its Victorian saloons on Colorado Avenue fill with locals, skiers and seasonal workers, and the main street can stay busy late.

Taos evenings are quieter: a margarita in an adobe hotel bar, a brewery taproom or a band in a saloon, and most people are in bed soon after dinner.

Both are serious mountain bases, and Telluride is the stronger of the two because of how close everything is. The box canyon walls, Bridal Veil Falls and the trails to Blue Lake start at the edge of town. The ski area rises straight above the streets, and in summer there is a via ferrata and old jeep roads over the passes.

Taos spreads its scenery over a wider landscape. It has the deep Rio Grande gorge with spring whitewater in the Taos Box, steep skiing half an hour up the canyon, and the climb up Wheeler Peak. Its open sagebrush plateau and huge skies feel quite different from Telluride's enclosed valley.

Taos has much more within a day's reach. Santa Fe is about an hour and a half away by the direct road. The slower, scenic way there is the winding High Road, which passes the adobe villages of Truchas and Las Trampas and the sanctuary at Chimayó. Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch lead into O'Keeffe country, and Bandelier's cliff dwellings make a long day out.

Telluride is more cut off. The old mining towns of Ouray and Silverton make attractive drives over mountain passes. Mesa Verde is the one major site, and it sits at the very limit of a day trip.

Telluride is the easier of the two with children, mostly because you can stay put once you arrive. Riding the free gondola is an outing in itself, there are gentle beginner slopes in Mountain Village, and the waterfall walks start close to town.

Taos offers float trips on the Rio Grande, horse riding and a big public pool, but every outing means time in the car. Neither town has a zoo or theme park. The higher altitude in Telluride is harder on young children for the first few nights.

This is where Telluride clearly wins. Its historic grid takes a quarter of an hour to cross on foot, and the free gondola and town buses connect it to Mountain Village, so many visitors never need a car during their stay.

In Taos, only the small area around the plaza is walkable. The Pueblo, the gorge bridge, the ski valley and Ranchos are spread across a wide valley, and visitors usually drive about two and a half hours from Albuquerque just to get there. Both towns are awkward to reach, but only Taos keeps you behind the wheel once you arrive.

Taos is the better place to shop because it has real local crafts. Pueblo micaceous pottery, Rio Grande weaving, carved santos and turquoise jewellery fill the galleries around the plaza and Kit Carson Road. You can also buy straight from the makers at the Pueblo.

Telluride's few blocks of Colorado Avenue offer galleries, bookshops and outdoor gear at resort prices. They are pleasant to browse but have little you couldn't find in other mountain towns.

Taos is clearly the cheaper stay. Alongside its pricier historic inns it has ordinary motels and casual chile diners, and spring and late autumn are especially easy on the budget. You will still need to pay for a hire car.

In Telluride, rooms, lift tickets and dinners are all near the top of the North American market. The Christmas and New Year weeks and the summer festival weekends push prices higher still. Staying out in Ridgway saves money, but you pay for it with a daily drive.

Telluride has more to see on stage, almost all of it concentrated in summer. The long-running Bluegrass Festival in Town Park is famous in its genre. The jazz, blues and chamber festivals and the Labor Day film festival follow it, and the Sheridan Opera House has shows all year.

Taos offers rarer and quieter moments. The ceremonial dances at the Pueblo on feast days such as San Gerónimo can be watched under strict rules, and there is also a summer chamber music festival. For most of the year, live music in Taos means a band in a bar.

Taos is better for a restful stay. Ojo Caliente, with outdoor pools fed by several different mineral springs, is under an hour away, and there are wild hot springs at the bottom of the Rio Grande gorge. The town also has yoga studios and retreat centres that draw on its long spiritual reputation.

Telluride offers polished hotel spas in Mountain Village after a day's skiing, and the hot springs pools at Ouray and Ridgway are about an hour's drive away. Its higher altitude also makes the first nights more restless.