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If forced to choose, I would say water. As others have pointed out, mountains are pretty to look at from a distance. But, they aren't usually intimately accessible in the same way water is. Water attacks human settlement, mountains detract.
But, fortunately we don't have to choose. The West Coast of course stands out in having multiple cities with both. There are a few smaller cities out there that have a nice mix. Places like Burlington Vermont, Duluth, Mn come to mind...assuming we are including lakes and huge hills. Hack even places like Syracuse, NY have easy access to water and forested hills with gorges for hiking, mountain biking, skiing, boating/sailing, swimming, kayaking.
If forced to choose, I would say water. As others have pointed out, mountains are pretty to look at from a distance. But, they aren't usually intimately accessible in the same way water is. Water attacks human settlement, mountains detract.
Another issue I see with huge mountains is that they can create serious atmospheric inversions when they are too close to a location. Not a fan of that at all. Smaller hills outback are a much better compromise.
The trick to swimming in cooler water is just to jump in or use one of the pools right on the beach.
Kits Pool
At Kits beach looking across to Stanley Park
LOL I would not have guessed that is a thing but I can see why it works. Are the pools heated up there?
We get a good 6 month pool season here in the southwest which I don't mind at all. Put another way, if I'm traveling for the purposes of going to a beach I'm not heading to the Northwest. If I lived there I would be inclined to hang out by the beach sometimes because I like it but the mountains would be the bigger draw.
I like to visit the mountains but to live somewhere it has to be near water.
I love rivers, creeks, brooks, lakes and the ocean.
Mountains almost always have water including rivers, creeks, brooks, or lakes with some of the best scenery around it. And my favorite creeks happen to be those in the mountains.
I grew up around mountains so that. Water is obviously nice but I realize that I don’t find it that exciting. Mountains/hills are so much more interesting, depending on the place
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