Chicago or Kansas City?

Chicago has a genuine urban beach scene: more than twenty sandy strands along Lake Michigan, from Oak Street Beach under the Gold Coast towers to the volleyball crowd at North Avenue. The freshwater swimming season is short, but in high summer it is a real part of a visit.

Kansas City has nothing comparable. Swimming there means a lake beach in an outlying county park or a hotel pool, fine for cooling off children but never a reason to choose it.

Chicago wins on range. Besides its own canon of deep-dish, Italian beef and the dressed hot dog, it has serious tasting-menu kitchens and whole neighbourhoods of Mexican, South Asian, Vietnamese and Polish cooking, so a week of meals never repeats itself.

Kansas City's strength is narrower and deeper: hickory-smoked barbecue, burnt ends and old cattle-town steakhouses, with smokehouse-hopping a pleasure in itself. Beyond the River Market counters and the Westside's Mexican kitchens, though, fine dining is thin, and anyone who isn't there for the smoke will find less to explore.

In Chicago the city itself is the main sight. A walk through the Loop takes you from early steel-frame towers to the Rookery's light court and on to Mies van der Rohe's glass and steel. The architecture keeps going block after block, and Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House carries the story out to Hyde Park. On top of that come the Art Institute and the Museum Campus, so you could spend a week seeing things without going back over the same ground.

Kansas City offers separate single visits rather than a city to walk through. The Nelson-Atkins with its Chinese collection, the National WWI Museum beneath the Liberty Memorial, and the Negro Leagues and jazz museums at 18th and Vine are each excellent, and the last two tell stories that Chicago cannot. There are drives rather than historic streets between them, though, and two or three days covers the list.

A night out in Chicago can run until 4am. It spreads across neighbourhoods with distinct characters: dive and cocktail bars in Wicker Park and Logan Square, clubs in River North, Northalsted's gay scene and dance floors still rooted in house music.

Kansas City is friendlier than it is late. Power and Light fills up on game nights, Westport draws students and the Crossroads suits a quieter craft-beer evening. The club scene is small, the districts need a car or ride between them, and midweek the city winds down early.

Neither city has dramatic scenery, but Chicago makes more of what it has. The 29km lakefront path, with water on one side and the skyline on the other, is a superb walk or ride, and Indiana Dunes and the canyons of Starved Rock are within easy reach.

Kansas City's green spaces are gentler and more local: the vast Swope Park, Loose Park's roses, creekside trails and reservoirs on the edge of the metro area. The real hiking country of the Ozarks lies several hours away.

From Chicago the outings are easier to reach and a little more rewarding, even if none is famous. Milwaukee is a straightforward train ride for its lakefront art museum and breweries. With a car, the mansions of Lake Geneva and the orchards and beaches of southwest Michigan make good summer days.

Every outing from Kansas City depends on driving: Truman's Independence, the college main street of Lawrence, the river town of Weston, and St Joseph's Pony Express and Jesse James history. They make pleasant half days rather than highlights.

Both cities work well with children, but Chicago packs more into a small area. A day at the Museum of Science and Industry, then dinosaurs, belugas and planets side by side on the Museum Campus, plus the free Lincoln Park Zoo and lifeguarded summer beaches, adds up to a fuller week.

Kansas City's trump card is Worlds of Fun, a proper roller-coaster park with a water park, and the Crown Center and Union Station cluster gives an easy indoor day. It is relaxed and parking is easy, but the attractions are spread out and the days involve a lot of driving.

Chicago works without a car. The L runs from both airports into the Loop, the downtown grid is flat and walkable, and the main museums and parks sit close together, though crossing between neighbourhoods often means a bus.

Kansas City is built around the highway. The Main Street streetcar links the River Market, downtown, Union Station and Crown Center, so staying on that line allows a day or two on foot, but the zoo, Worlds of Fun and the outlying sights realistically need a car or ride-hailing.

Chicago is a proper shopping destination. The Magnificent Mile has flagships and vertical malls, Oak Street has luxury labels, and the old Marshall Field's under its Tiffany ceiling is worth seeing in its own right. Wicker Park and Andersonville add independent fashion and vintage.

Kansas City offers one handsome centrepiece in the Spanish-style Country Club Plaza, with galleries and thrift shops in the Crossroads and Westport. Beyond that, shopping drifts out to suburban malls, and the local souvenirs are mostly barbecue sauce and team shirts.

Kansas City is the cheaper stay, mainly because hotel rooms, even downtown, cost noticeably less than Chicago's, and parking is plentiful. The saving narrows once you add a hired car, which most visitors need there.

Chicago's downtown hotels are expensive, especially in summer, and hotel taxes push bills higher. It claws some of that back with good-value L trains and plenty of free outings, from the lakefront and beaches to Millennium Park and Lincoln Park Zoo, but it remains the bigger outlay.

Chicago is one of the great American stages. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Lyric Opera are world-class, Steppenwolf, the Goodman and dozens of storefront companies give it real theatrical depth, Second City has improv every night, and electric blues still fills clubs across the North and South Sides.

Kansas City has a smaller season with a clear identity. It is the home of hard-swinging jazz, with late jam sessions around 18th and Vine, while the Kauffman Center houses a solid symphony, opera and ballet. It is a fine place to hear jazz, but it has less range.

For a big, busy city, Chicago has a surprising bathing streak. The century-old Russian-and-Turkish bathhouse in Wicker Park, with its scorching steam and cold plunges, and a Korean jjimjilbang in the suburbs are real places to sweat out a long day of sightseeing. In winter, the warm glasshouses at Lincoln Park and Garfield Park are a quiet escape from the cold.

Kansas City has no bathing tradition of its own, only hotel spas and the old mineral-water resort of Excelsior Springs about forty minutes north. Its everyday pace is calmer than Chicago's, though, and a quiet morning among Loose Park's roses is easy to find.