Branson or Kansas City?

Neither city is on the coast, but Branson has a real summer swimming season and Kansas City does not. From June into September, Table Rock Lake is warm and clear, with swim areas on brought-in sand and rented pontoons tied up in quiet coves. That is enough to fill several lazy afternoons on a summer trip.

Kansas City only has lake beaches in county parks on the edge of the metro area, plus hotel and public pools. They are fine for cooling the children down, but nobody plans a day around them.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Kansas City has a cooking style of its own, with hickory-smoked meats, a thick sweet sauce and burnt ends served everywhere from old counters near the stockyards to polished dining rooms. The River Market's immigrant counters and the Mexican Westside add variety beyond the smoke.

In Branson you mostly eat to refuel between shows: buffets, fried chicken, chain restaurants along Highway 76 and set dinners in the theatres. Its best tastes are small Ozark ones, such as cinnamon bread, fudge and fresh lake trout.

Kansas City has the sights here, by a long way. The Nelson-Atkins has an encyclopaedic collection with very strong Chinese art, the WWI Museum is the country's main museum of that war, and the Negro Leagues and jazz museums tell stories you will not find anywhere else. Union Station and the Spanish-style Country Club Plaza give the city some architecture worth seeing too.

Branson's attractions are entertainment, not heritage: wax museums, a museum shaped like the bow of an ocean liner, and a few brick blocks downtown. The craft demonstrations at the 1880s-themed park and the Ralph Foster Museum are the closest it gets to history.

Kansas City at least gives you a night out, which Branson does not. You can pick a district to suit you: the sports bars of the Power and Light District, student bars in Westport, or cocktails and craft beer in the Crossroads. Clubs are few, though, and weeknights end early.

In Branson the theatre is the night out, and once the curtain falls most visitors, families and older couples alike, head back to their rooms. A brewpub at the lakefront district is about as late as it goes.

Branson sits in the Ozarks, the hill country that Kansas City's own outdoor lovers drive several hours to reach. It has limestone bluffs, clear streams, caves to tour and a long, wooded reservoir for paddling and fishing. Table Rock State Park and the Hercules Glades Wilderness are close by, and the Buffalo National River is a day's outing to the south.

Around Kansas City the land is rolling prairie and farmland along the Missouri and Kansas rivers. Swope Park, the rose garden in Loose Park and the creekside trails make good city walks, but there is little wild scenery.

Branson has the slightly better list. Eureka Springs, a Victorian spa town of stone buildings on steep streets, is about an hour away, and Crystal Bridges in Bentonville is a major art museum set in woodland. Springfield's Civil War battlefield adds some history.

From Kansas City the outings are gentler half days: Truman's home in Independence, the university town of Lawrence, the old river town of Weston and the Pony Express museum in St Joseph. You need a car from either city.

Both are easy with children, but Branson is built around them. Its Ozarks theme park, water parks, showboat, zip lines, caves and dinner shows with horses and stunts fill a week, and almost every theatre show is suitable for the whole family. Add a day on a rented boat on the lake and you have a whole vacation.

Kansas City gives families an excellent long weekend instead, with Worlds of Fun, a large zoo, Science City in Union Station and the Crown Center attractions. Baseball at Kauffman Stadium makes a relaxed evening, though the attractions are far apart.

Both are driving destinations, but Kansas City gives you a little more choice. Its free-flowing highways and easy parking make driving painless, and the Main Street streetcar links the River Market, downtown, Union Station and Crown Center, so staying along it makes a car-free day possible.

Branson has no such option. Everything lies spread along Highway 76 over hilly kilometres with patchy pavements, and the strip slows to a crawl on show nights, so the colour-coded back roads are worth learning.

Kansas City has more to browse. The 1920s Country Club Plaza has upmarket stores among tiled towers, and the Crossroads, Westport and 39th Street add galleries, vintage and record shops.

Branson is about outlets, the lakeside Branson Landing and souvenirs, but its handmade Ozark crafts are the more memorable buys. You can watch glass, pottery and ironwork being made before you buy it.

Overall costs are much the same, but you spend the money in different places. In Branson, rooms in motels, condos and lake cabins are cheap, then show tickets, park entry and boat hire add up. Show-and-hotel packages can help.

Kansas City hotels cost more, but the free entry to the Nelson-Atkins and filling barbecue lunches keep sightseeing days modest. In both, you will need to budget for a hire car, sales tax and tips.

Both are strong for live performance in very different ways, and Branson has the edge for sheer quantity. Dozens of theatres stage country, gospel, tribute acts, magic and large biblical productions from morning to night, and at Christmas the whole town fills with seasonal shows.

Kansas City offers more range. Its own swinging jazz plays in small clubs into the night, and the Kauffman Center hosts the symphony, opera and ballet. Add serious drama at the Rep and summer musicals at Starlight, and it suits anyone who finds Branson's style too narrow.

Neither has a bathing tradition, but Branson makes it easier to slow down, as long as you stay by the lake rather than on the strip. Lodge resorts on Table Rock Lake have full spas, and a cabin on a wooded cove is genuinely quiet.

In Kansas City, wellness mostly means hotel spas, though the old mineral-water resort of Excelsior Springs is about forty minutes away. The city's unhurried pace and its rose garden help too.