Chicago or Boston?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Chicago has the beach life. More than twenty sandy lake beaches lie inside the city, from Oak Street right below the Gold Coast towers to the volleyball crowd at North Avenue. In August the fresh water is warm enough for a proper swim between sights.

Boston's sea is colder Atlantic, and its best sand is out of town, at Crane Beach's dunes or Singing Beach on the commuter rail. Revere Beach and the small harbour beaches are closer, but a swim there is a hot-day treat rather than something to plan around.

Chicago is the stronger food city and the more varied one. It has its own canon of deep-dish, Italian beef and the dressed hot dog, top-tier tasting menus on Randolph Street, and whole neighbourhoods of Mexican, South Asian, Vietnamese and Polish cooking. You can eat very well there at any budget.

Boston's best eating is in a narrower lane: oysters, clams, chowder and lobster rolls, plus cannoli and red sauce in the North End. Cambridge and the South End have serious chef-led kitchens, but away from seafood there is less that is distinctly local, and meals cost more.

These two are close, and they offer different kinds of history. Boston has the older story: the Revolution along the Freedom Trail, the gas-lit lanes of Beacon Hill and the Gardner Museum's Venetian palazzo. Chicago has nothing older than the 19th century.

Chicago edges ahead on spectacle, though. The Loop is a textbook of skyscraper design, best seen from a river cruise, and the Art Institute's Impressionists and the Museum Campus give the city a deeper museum line-up than the Museum of Fine Arts and Harvard's collections.

Chicago is the clear choice for a night out. Late licences keep bars pouring until 4am, and each neighbourhood has its own style: cocktail bars in Logan Square, clubs in River North, Northalsted's gay scene, and dance nights rooted in the house music the city helped invent.

Boston does the pub evening well, from Irish bars near Faneuil Hall to student haunts in Allston and Cambridge. But last orders come at 2am and the T stops soon after midnight, so the night is over before Chicago's has really started.

Boston has more to offer outdoors. Olmsted's Emerald Necklace runs through the city, and summer ferries go to the harbour islands. Humpbacks feed at Stellwagen Bank, and within an hour you can reach Cape Ann's rocks, the Blue Hills or Walden Pond, all at their best in the autumn colours.

Chicago's nature is mostly the lake: a long shoreline path for walking and cycling, and birding in Lincoln and Jackson Parks. Beyond that the prairie is flat. Indiana Dunes and the canyons of Starved Rock are the nearest real escapes, and they take more effort.

Boston wins easily on day trips. Salem and Concord are short train rides away, Lexington and Plymouth tell the founding stories, Gloucester and Rockport are old fishing towns, and Newport's mansions are within reach for a longer day.

From Chicago the choice is thinner. Milwaukee by train and the Wright houses of Oak Park are the easy options, and Lake Geneva or the Michigan harbour towns need a car. Most visitors will spend the whole stay in the city.

Both cities are good with children, and Chicago has a slight edge in size and variety. The Museum of Science and Industry can fill a day on its own, and the Field Museum's dinosaurs and the Shedd's belugas are next door to each other. Lincoln Park Zoo is free, and Navy Pier and lifeguarded beaches fill summer afternoons.

Boston is smaller and easier to manage, with the aquarium, the Museum of Science and the Children's Museum close together. The swan boats and duckling statues in the Public Garden appeal to younger children, and re-enactors bring history to life. Both cities have hard winters.

Getting around is about equally easy in both, and neither needs a car. Boston's advantage is its tight historic core, where the North End, Beacon Hill and Back Bay are a short walk apart. Its ageing T and confusing streets matter less because you walk most places anyway.

Chicago's flat grid and the L from both airports make downtown simple. The city is much larger, though, so getting between neighbourhoods often means a bus along the long avenues, and the January wind makes those walks hard work.

Chicago is the better shopping city. The Magnificent Mile has flagships and vertical malls, Oak Street has the luxury labels, and the old Marshall Field's store on State Street is worth seeing for its Tiffany ceiling alone. Wicker Park and Andersonville add independent and vintage shops.

Boston has a smaller range: Newbury Street's boutiques in brownstones, antiques on Charles Street and bookshops in Harvard Square. It does have something Chicago lacks, though, in the SoWa market's local makers on summer weekends.

Both cities are expensive, but Boston costs more. Its hotel rooms are among the dearest in the country, peaking in foliage season, and even a casual seafood lunch adds up. Free sights like the Freedom Trail help, but there is no cheap way to stay.

Chicago gives a careful traveller more room. Taquerias and hot dog stands are cheap, and the beaches, Millennium Park and the zoo are free. A hotel outside the Loop, booked outside the summer and convention season, cuts the biggest cost noticeably.

Chicago has the fuller programme. Its Symphony Orchestra is world-class, and the Lyric Opera fills the gap that opera leaves in Boston. Steppenwolf, the Goodman and the storefront companies give it great depth in theatre, and Second City's improv and the electric blues clubs are all its own.

Boston's strength is classical music. The Boston Symphony Orchestra plays in a hall famous for its acoustics, and the Handel and Haydn Society specialises in early music. The A.R.T. sends premieres on to New York, and Berklee students keep small jazz rooms busy.

Neither city is somewhere to unwind, but Chicago has a bathing culture and Boston does not. In Chicago you can try the scorching steam rooms and cold plunges of the old Wicker Park bathhouse, a Korean-style jjimjilbang in the suburbs, or the warm conservatory glasshouses in winter.

In Boston, rest means a Back Bay day spa or a quiet hour in the Public Garden or the Arnold Arboretum. For a properly restful break, Bostonians usually head out to an inn on Cape Ann.