Amman or Dahab?

Amman has no coast of its own. Its swimming is at the Dead Sea, an hour's drive down, where you spend an afternoon floating in very salty water and covering yourself in mud. Real sea and coral mean a separate trip to Aqaba.

Dahab is built around the water, which stays warm enough to swim in all year. Expect jetties and rocks leading straight onto the reef rather than long stretches of sand, with the Lagoon as the place for shallow, calm water. It is a snorkelling coast more than a sunbathing one, but it is a proper sea.

Amman is the better place to eat by a distance. It has a real Levantine table: downtown breakfasts of falafel, hummus and fuul, hot knafeh from the sweet shops and mansaf at a family restaurant. Up in Jabal Amman and Weibdeh there are cafés and modern Arab cooking.

Dahab's meals are pleasant rather than interesting: grilled fish on cushions by the bay, then pizza and smoothie bowls. The best eating is the cheap Egyptian food in Assala, koshary and foul included, but the list is short.

Here the two barely compare. Amman has the Temple of Hercules and the Umayyad Palace on Citadel hill, with the Roman Theatre cut into the slope below. The Jordan Museum holds Dead Sea Scrolls and the 'Ain Ghazal statues, and together these are enough for two or three days.

Dahab has no museums or monuments. Its Bedouin roots show in Assala and in the tea stops around town, but anything historic means leaving town for the day.

Neither city is for partying, but Amman gives you more of an evening. Rainbow Street and Jabal Amman stay busy late with families and friends over shisha. Weibdeh and Abdoun have rooftop bars and there are a few weekend DJ nights, though drinking largely stops during Ramadan.

In Dahab an evening means a beer on cushions by the water with divers and instructors. Many of them are up early to dive, so the promenade goes quiet before midnight on most nights.

Dahab is far stronger outdoors. The Gulf of Aqaba drops to deep water a few metres off the shore, and the Lagoon's steady wind brings kitesurfers and windsurfers. The granite mountains of South Sinai start right behind town, with the Coloured Canyon, the walk or camel ride to Ras Abu Galum and the night climb up Mount Sinai.

Near Amman, the best outdoors is the drop to the Dead Sea, the wading hikes up the Wadi Mujib gorge in the warmer months and Ajloun's oak woods in spring. The city itself is bare and short of green, and Dana and Wadi Rum need overnight stays.

Amman is one of the region's best bases for day trips. The colonnaded Roman streets of Jerash lie under an hour north, and Madaba's mosaic map, Mount Nebo and the Baptism Site are to the south. Ajloun, Umm Qais, Salt, Kerak and the frescoed desert bathhouse of Qasr Amra fill further days.

From Dahab there is really one outing: St Catherine's Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai, two hours inland. Sharm el-Sheikh and Nuweiba add little, so trips from here go into the desert and the sea rather than to other towns.

Both are warm towards children and short of things built for them, so the choice depends on your children. Amman suits families who like sights. Older children can enjoy the Citadel and Jerash, King Hussein Park has a children's museum and floating in the Dead Sea makes a memorable day, though the steep streets defeat pushchairs.

Dahab is a water vacation: shallow sand at the Lagoon, snorkelling from shore for confident swimmers, and camel rides. Reef shoes are needed and serious medical care is in Sharm el-Sheikh, so it suits older children better than toddlers.

Neither is easy, but for different reasons. Amman is a big hill city with no metro. You can walk downtown and the stairways up to Weibdeh, but everything else means cheap taxis or ride-hailing, and day trips mean a hired driver.

Dahab is the opposite: a small, flat seafront you can walk for days, with about 2km of promenade from the Lighthouse to Mashraba. Leave it for the Lagoon, the Blue Hole or the mountains and there is no public transport, only taxis, pickups and arranged trips. Getting there usually means a road transfer of about an hour from Sharm el-Sheikh airport.

Amman has far more to buy. The downtown souks and gold souk are worth a wander, and the shops around Rainbow Street sell embroidered Palestinian textiles, Hebron glass, Bedouin rugs and work from women's cooperatives. On summer Fridays there is also Souk Jara.

Dahab's promenade stalls sell scarves, jewellery and souvenirs, and the one thing really worth buying is dive and freediving gear.

Dahab is much cheaper. Guesthouses, camps and Egyptian meals in Assala cost very little, and dive courses are good value by international standards, which is why people stay for weeks.

Amman is cheap at street level, with falafel breakfasts and taxi rides costing little. Mid-range hotels and restaurants, though, cost about what they would in Southern Europe, and private drivers and foreigners' entrance fees at the big sites add up. In both places, alcohol is the expensive part.

Amman has a little to offer and Dahab has nothing. The Royal Cultural Centre, small stages in Weibdeh and downtown, and the summer Jerash Festival in the ancient theatres give you a chance of an oud recital or Arabic theatre, though programmes are irregular and mostly in Arabic. In Dahab, music means a band in a promenade bar or Bedouin songs at a desert camp.

The two are about level for rest, but the rest is of a different kind. In Amman it means a drive. An hour downhill, the Dead Sea resort spas sell day passes for floating, mineral mud wraps and pools, and the Ma'in hot springs pour through a desert canyon nearby. Back in town there are a few hammams for steam and a scrub, but with the traffic and the hills, the city's calm moments mostly come over a long glass of tea.

Dahab works the other way round. It has no thermal baths or hammam tradition, and you will only find spas in the larger hotels. What it offers is a slow pace you live in all day. Yoga, breathwork and massage are cheap and easy to find, afternoons pass on cushions in the seafront cafés, and evenings end with the sun going down over the Sinai mountains behind town.