Atlanta or Memphis?

Neither city is a beach destination, since both lie far inland. Atlanta at least has a substitute: Lake Lanier and Lake Allatoona, about an hour north, have sandy swimming areas and warm summer water. Memphis sits on a working barge river that nobody swims in, so cooling off there means a pool, a splash pad or a drive out to a country lake.

Atlanta has the wider choice. Southern classics in meat-and-threes and west-side soul food kitchens are only half of it. Buford Highway's Korean, Vietnamese, Mexican and Ethiopian kitchens, plus chef-led places in Inman Park and the Westside, mean you can eat something different every night.

Memphis goes deep rather than wide. Its dry-rubbed ribs, pulled pork sandwiches and local specialities such as barbecue spaghetti are worth the trip in themselves, backed up by catfish, hot wings and Delta tamales. Step outside the regional cooking, though, and the choice soon runs thin.

Both cities matter for the civil rights story, and each tells a different part of it. Atlanta has King's birth home and Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue, and Memphis has the Lorraine Motel, where he was killed, now the National Civil Rights Museum. Music history is what puts Memphis ahead: Graceland, Sun Studio and the Stax Museum have no equal anywhere else, and Beale Street and Front Street keep some old brick character.

Atlanta's reply is the High Museum, a stronger art collection than anything in Memphis, along with the Atlanta History Center and the Carter Library. Its centre was largely rebuilt after 1864, though, so its sightseeing fills two or three days.

Atlanta has the bigger and more varied night out. It has a club scene built on the hip-hop and trap the city sends out to the rest of the country, dive bars and small dance floors along Edgewood Avenue, one of the South's largest LGBTQ scenes in Midtown, and bottle-service lounges in Buckhead. Each area is a separate pocket that you reach by car.

Memphis keeps it simpler. Beale Street is one pedestrian party strip where you can carry a drink from bar to bar. It is good fun for a weekend but not deep, and the quieter alternative is the bars of Overton Square and Cooper-Young. For serious clubbing, choose Atlanta.

The landscape decides this one. Atlanta lies among wooded hills, with tall hardwoods shading much of the city, the granite dome of Stone Mountain and the trails of Kennesaw Mountain within half an hour, and the Chattahoochee to paddle on its northern edge. Two hours north, the Blue Ridge foothills bring Amicalola Falls, Tallulah Gorge and the southern end of the Appalachian Trail.

Memphis is flat floodplain, and its outdoors means the river and big parks. You can walk across the Mississippi on the Big River Crossing, watch the sunset from the bluffs, and cycle or paddle among the lakes and bison of Shelby Farms. It is pleasant, but there is nothing to climb.

The two are about even here, and both need a car, but the outings feel different. From Atlanta you head into small-town Georgia and the mountains: the college town of Athens, Dahlonega's gold-rush square and vineyards, the antebellum houses of Madison, or the aquarium and Lookout Mountain at Chattanooga.

From Memphis a day out is more of a pilgrimage. Highway 61 runs into the Delta to Clarksdale and the Mississippi Blues Trail, Oxford has Faulkner's house, Tupelo has Elvis's birthplace and Shiloh has its battlefield. The list suits music and history lovers more than anyone looking for scenery.

Atlanta is much the easier city with children. The Georgia Aquarium's whale sharks and belugas, the gorillas at Zoo Atlanta, Fernbank's dinosaurs, the Center for Puppetry Arts and Six Flags fill a week of outings, and hotels and restaurants are relaxed about children.

Memphis has a good zoo in Overton Park, the Pink Palace planetarium, the Children's Museum and the Peabody ducks, which is enough for a couple of days. After that, its main museums on music and civil rights suit teenagers better than young children.

You will want a car in both cities, and you need one for anything out of town. The difference is in what you can manage without one. In Atlanta, the MARTA rail line links the airport, downtown, Midtown and Buckhead, and the BeltLine's Eastside Trail joins several neighbourhoods for walking or cycling.

Memphis has no rail line like that, but its downtown is compact, so you can cover Beale Street, the riverfront, the Civil Rights Museum and South Main on foot or by heritage trolley. Graceland and Midtown are still a drive away.

Buckhead is where Atlanta shops. Two big malls face each other on Peachtree Road with department stores and luxury labels, Buckhead Village adds designer boutiques, and Little Five Points has the vintage clothes and record shops. It is mainstream American retail done well rather than anything unique to the city, but there is far more of it than in Memphis.

Memphis shopping is smaller and mostly about music: vintage vinyl and blues and Elvis memorabilia, plus small boutiques and local art on Broad Avenue and in Cooper-Young. Its mainstream malls are out in the eastern suburbs.

Memphis is the cheaper of the two. Barbecue lunches and soul-food plates are filling and cost little, and hotels are reasonable away from busy downtown weekends. Graceland charges full admission, though, and prices climb sharply during the big spring festivals.

Atlanta is reasonable for a large American city, with hotels well below coastal levels outside Buckhead and convention weeks, fair prices on Buford Highway and free entry to the King sites. Its big family attractions charge steep entry fees, and in both cities car hire, tax and tips add up.

The two are close, but each is strong in a different way. Atlanta leads in concert halls and theatre. It has the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Alliance Theatre at the Woodruff Arts Center, full opera and ballet seasons and the 1920s Fox Theatre, and its standing in hip-hop, R&B and gospel brings major tours to its arenas.

Memphis is the place for roots music played live every night. Beale Street has house bands from the afternoon, Midtown adds rock and local acts, and in the warm months there are free shows on the lawn at the Levitt Shell. Its symphony, opera, ballet and the Orpheum are smaller in scale.

Atlanta is better for a day of rest, thanks to the big Korean-style bathhouses in the northeastern suburbs, with hot and cold pools, sauna rooms and lounging halls, plus the day spas of Buckhead and Midtown. Memphis has no bathing tradition, so rest there means a hotel spa, an early walk in Overton Park or an evening watching the river from the bluffs. Neither city is somewhere people go mainly to slow down.