Tucson or Winter Park, Colorado?

Neither place has a beach, and swimming in both means a pool. What differs is the water nearby. Tucson's resort pools are welcome through the long hot season, and Sabino Canyon has short-lived pools after rain. Winter Park's lakes stay cold from snowmelt, and its warm water is in the hot springs pools down the valley.

Tucson is a real food city in a way Winter Park is not. Its Sonoran Mexican cooking runs from paper-thin flour tortillas to bacon-wrapped hot dogs from south-side carts, with deep roots in family-run kitchens along South 12th Avenue. Desert ingredients such as tepary beans and prickly pear give it a local stamp.

Winter Park feeds hungry skiers with burgers, green chile, pizza, the odd steak or elk dinner and a couple of breweries. It does the job, but there is no regional cooking or market life to seek out, and tables fill early on winter weekends.

Tucson has a short but rewarding list of sights. There is the gilded interior of San Xavier del Bac, the adobe row houses of Barrio Viejo and El Presidio, the Native American collections of the Arizona State Museum, and hundreds of aircraft at Pima Air & Space. Two or three days covers it.

Winter Park has almost nothing of this kind beyond the railway story of the Moffat Tunnel and a small ranch museum in Fraser. For a museum day you have to drive to Denver.

Neither offers a big night out, but Tucson has an actual scene. The dive bars and patios of Fourth Avenue and the cocktail bars and rooftops of Congress Street are within walking distance of each other. Weekends during term are lively, and there are a few places to dance.

In Winter Park the evening peaks at après-ski, when the base village bars fill as the lifts close, then thins out to a few taprooms on the main road. The crowd is mostly families and early risers, so the town is asleep long before Tucson's bars wind down.

Both are serious outdoor bases, but Winter Park is built entirely around the mountains. It has two linked ski areas, with groomed cruisers on Winter Park and bumps and trees on Mary Jane, plus a summer bike park and the moose and tundra of Rocky Mountain National Park an hour north. Together they give it the deeper offer through most of the year.

Tucson has a very different landscape: saguaro forests on both sides of the city, canyon trails at Sabino and Catalina, and the drive up Mount Lemmon from cactus to pine. It is superb from autumn to spring, but in summer the heat pushes activity to dawn or up into the mountains.

Tucson has more outings and more varied ones. There is frontier Tombstone, the Victorian copper town of Bisbee, the artists' village of Tubac next to the Tumacácori mission ruins, wineries at Sonoita and Elgin, and Biosphere 2 to the north. All of them need a car, but none means crossing a high pass.

From Winter Park the list is shorter: Georgetown and Idaho Springs over Berthoud Pass, the boardwalk at Grand Lake, Hot Sulphur Springs, and Denver about an hour and a half away. Winter storms on the pass can upset any of these plans.

Both work well for families, but in different seasons and in different ways. Tucson offers a run of attractions from October to April: the mountain lions and hummingbirds of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Reid Park Zoo, the planetarium and the giant aircraft. They are spread out, though, and you need a car to reach them.

Winter Park is a compact village built around a large children's ski school, with tubing and sleigh rides in winter and an alpine slide and easy bike trails in summer, all linked by a free shuttle. Altitude can disturb the first nights, and rainy days offer little to do indoors.

Tucson is the more car-dependent of the two. The Sun Link streetcar covers only downtown, Fourth Avenue and the university, and the slow buses do little to get you to the national park, the mission or Mount Lemmon. A hire car is close to essential, though light traffic and easy parking make driving painless.

Winter Park is easier for a stay centred on the slopes. Its free shuttle links the ski base, the town and Fraser, so a ski week can be done without driving. Trailheads, Grand Lake and the national park still need a car, and the drive in from Denver crosses Berthoud Pass.

Tucson gives you a reason to browse: Native American jewellery, Tohono O'odham baskets and Mexican folk art in the old-town galleries and in Tubac, vintage shops on Fourth Avenue, and a gem and mineral show each winter that draws collectors from around the world. Winter Park's shops deal in ski tuning, bike parts and outdoor clothing, which is useful for forgotten gear but little more. Denver is the nearest place for real shopping.

Tucson is clearly the cheaper of the two. Mid-range hotels and taquerías keep costs down, and summer brings easy bargains, though a hire car and sit-down restaurant bills add up.

A ski-season stay in Winter Park means lift tickets, rentals, lessons and resort-priced meals, with little cheap food to fall back on. A condo with a kitchen in Fraser helps. Summer is far kinder to the budget, with free trails and lower lodging rates.

Tucson has a modest but genuine season from autumn to spring. The symphony, Arizona Opera and the Arizona Theatre Company all perform here, touring Broadway shows play Centennial Hall, the Fox Theatre and the Rialto host concerts downtown, and mariachi runs through the life of the city.

Winter Park has free summer concerts in the town park and bands in the après-ski bars, but no theatre or concert hall at all.

Tucson takes wellness further. It is one of the early homes of the American destination spa, with foothills resorts offering fitness, desert walks, massage and meditation, and quiet, sunny winter days to match. It has no public bathing culture, though.

In Winter Park, rest comes from cold mountain air and a hot tub after a day outside, with a few spas for sore legs. Its real asset for bathing is Hot Sulphur Springs half an hour west, where mineral pools step down a hillside above the Colorado River. Tucson has nothing like it.