Atlanta or St. Louis?

Neither city is a place for a beach vacation, since both sit far inland. Atlanta has the slightly better fallback: Lake Lanier and Lake Allatoona, about an hour away, have sandy swimming areas and warm summer water for a local-style lake day. In St. Louis the Mississippi and Missouri are too fast and industrial for swimming, so cooling off means a pool or a long drive to an Ozark reservoir.

Atlanta is the better city to eat in. It gives you Southern cooking in its home setting, from fried chicken and collards to serious Sunday brunch, and then Buford Highway adds miles of Korean, Vietnamese, Mexican and Ethiopian restaurants run for their own communities. Food halls on the BeltLine and chef-led kitchens in Inman Park and the Westside round it out.

St. Louis has its own quirkier repertoire: toasted ravioli, Provel-topped thin-crust pizza, gooey butter cake, frozen custard, Italian trattorias on the Hill and Bosnian grills on South Grand. Beer is its deeper tradition, from the old Anheuser-Busch brewery to the Saturday Soulard Market. It is cheap and satisfying, but it has less range than Atlanta.

These two are closely matched, but the sights are very different. Atlanta's weight lies in recent history. The King birth home and Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue, together with the civil rights centre downtown, make it a place to understand the movement, with the High Museum adding art. Much of its older fabric was lost in 1864, though.

St. Louis has more old townscape to walk through. There are whole red-brick streets in Soulard and Lafayette Square, the Wainwright Building and Union Station, as well as the Gateway Arch and the Old Courthouse of the Dred Scott case. Its art and history museums in Forest Park are free. In both cities, two or three days covers the essentials.

Atlanta is the far stronger night out. Its big clubs play the hip-hop and trap the city sends around the world, Midtown anchors one of the South's largest LGBTQ scenes, and Edgewood Avenue packs small dance floors into a few blocks.

St. Louis is friendlier and lower-key: blues bars and corner taverns in Soulard, dance bars on Washington Avenue, the Grove for late nights and students on the Delmar Loop. Outside weekends and baseball nights it quietens early. In both cities the areas are spread out, so plan on rides between them.

Atlanta offers more striking landscape. Its tree canopy and the BeltLine trail make the city itself green, Stone Mountain and Kennesaw are half an hour out, and the Blue Ridge foothills, with waterfalls, gorges and the southern end of the Appalachian Trail, are about two hours north.

St. Louis has Forest Park, a huge park within the city, and gentler country beyond it: Ozark bluffs and caves at Castlewood, the boulders of Elephant Rocks, the confluence wetlands and the Katy Trail for cyclists. Winter eagle-watching near Alton is its distinctive extra. Both need a car and are best in spring and autumn.

The two are fairly level here, and St. Louis has the single most memorable outing. Cahokia Mounds, a UNESCO site twenty minutes across the river, is matched by nothing near Atlanta, and the French colonial houses of Ste. Genevieve and the German wine towns along the Missouri add variety. Hannibal and Lincoln's Springfield are within reach too.

Atlanta's outings lean towards small towns and mountains: college-town Athens, gold-rush Dahlonega among vineyards, antebellum Madison, and Chattanooga with its riverfront and aquarium. Savannah is too far for a day.

Both cities work well with children, and the choice comes down to style. Atlanta goes big. It has the Georgia Aquarium with whale sharks and belugas, Zoo Atlanta's gorillas, Fernbank's dinosaurs, the Center for Puppetry Arts and Six Flags for older children.

St. Louis is more hands-on and easier on the wallet. The City Museum's tunnels and rooftop slides are unlike anything else, the zoo and Science Center are free, and the Arch tram pods and a baseball evening make easy treats. Expect driving and hot summer afternoons in either.

Both cities assume you have a car, and each has one useful rail line. Atlanta's MARTA links the airport, downtown, Midtown and Buckhead, and the Eastside Trail joins a few walkable neighbourhoods. Beyond that you face a sprawling, hilly metro and notorious rush-hour traffic.

St. Louis's MetroLink covers the airport, Forest Park, the Central West End and downtown. The neighbourhoods off the line also need a car, but the roads are uncongested and parking is easy, so the driving itself is far less of a chore.

Atlanta is the better place to shop, mainly because of Buckhead. Two large malls facing each other on Peachtree Road carry the department stores and luxury labels, and Buckhead Village adds designer boutiques. Little Five Points supplies vintage clothing and records.

St. Louis keeps things smaller and more local. Cherokee Street's antiques and Latin American shops, the student boutiques of the Delmar Loop and the Soulard Market make a pleasant afternoon, while big-name fashion sits out in suburban malls.

Both are cheaper than the coastal cities, and St. Louis comes out a little kinder. The difference is mostly free entry. Its zoo, art museum, history museum and science centre cost nothing, whereas Atlanta's headline family attractions charge steeply and only the civil rights sites are free.

Hotels are reasonable in both, and casual eating, from Buford Highway to South Grand, is fair value. Tax, tips and a hire car add up in either city.

This is close to a tie, with different strengths. Atlanta leans towards popular music: as a centre of hip-hop, R&B and gospel it draws major arena tours, with the Tabernacle and smaller rooms in Little Five Points in between. Its symphony, opera, ballet and the Alliance Theatre cover the classical side.

St. Louis has deeper roots in the blues, as the city of Chuck Berry and "St. Louis Blues", with live blues and jazz in Soulard through the week. Its symphony, founded in 1880, is one of the country's oldest, and summer musicals under the sky at the Muny in Forest Park have no match in Atlanta.

Neither city is a place to unwind, but Atlanta has one real draw. The big Korean bathhouses in the northeastern suburbs, with hot and cold pools, sauna rooms and lounging halls, make a genuine half day of rest.

St. Louis has no bathing culture, only ordinary day spas and yoga studios. Its calm comes from an unhurried pace and quiet mornings in Forest Park or the Japanese garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden.