Chicago or Myrtle Beach?

Myrtle Beach is the real beach destination of the two. The Grand Strand gives mile after mile of wide, pale sand, the surf is usually small, and the Atlantic stays warm enough for long swims all summer. If the central blocks feel too crowded, the dune-backed beaches at Surfside and the state parks are calmer.

Chicago's lakefront beaches surprise people, from Oak Street beneath the Gold Coast towers to the volleyball courts at North Avenue, and the fresh water is clearer than Myrtle Beach's greenish sea. But the lake is cold for most of the year and the swimming season lasts only about ten weeks. Treat the beaches as a summer afternoon off, not a reason to go.

Chicago is by far the better place to eat. It has its own classics in deep-dish and tavern-cut pizza, Italian beef and the fully dressed hot dog, a fine-dining strip along Randolph Street, and whole neighbourhoods cooking Mexican, South Asian, Vietnamese, Polish and Korean food.

Myrtle Beach is set up to feed crowds rather than people who travel for food, with buffets, pancake houses and chains along the strip. The good eating is the shrimp, oysters and flounder at Murrells Inlet and Calabash-style fried seafood over the state line. That is worth an evening or two, but not a week.

This is where the two differ most. Chicago is a place to study architecture: the early steel-frame towers of the Loop, the river cruise, Robie House and Oak Park's Prairie houses. The Art Institute and the museums of the Museum Campus are major institutions in their own right.

Myrtle Beach has little history on view. Brookgreen Gardens is a good day out, with its sculpture among live oaks and its exhibits on the people enslaved on the old rice plantation, and the Moorish-style Atalaya is next door. That is most of the list.

Chicago goes out properly and late, with bars open until 4am and a different scene in each neighbourhood. There are cocktail bars and dive bars in Wicker Park and Logan Square, dance clubs in River North that draw on the city's house music history, and the gay district in Northalsted.

Myrtle Beach's nights are loud, casual and seasonal, centred on the boardwalk bars and the big entertainment complexes. Its one distinctive tradition is the shag, still danced in the old clubs of North Myrtle Beach. Outside summer the strip goes quiet early.

The two are broadly level, and both are flat, with no hills or real hiking. Chicago's outdoors is built around the lake: the 29km shore path for walking and cycling past the skyline, birding in Lincoln and Jackson Parks, and the dunes and trails of Indiana Dunes about an hour away.

Myrtle Beach's outdoors is wilder and wetter. There are salt marshes and maritime forest, alligators and herons at Huntington Beach State Park, kayaking among the cypress swamps of the Waccamaw River, dolphin cruises from the inlets, and dozens of golf courses.

Myrtle Beach has the better day trips, mainly because Charleston, with its antebellum streets and harbour forts, is a long but rewarding day's drive away. Georgetown's old port and the Wilmington riverfront add variety. All of them need a car.

From Chicago, Milwaukee is an easy train ride and Oak Park is right on the city's edge. Beyond those, it means driving across the prairie to Lake Geneva or the southwest Michigan shore, which is pleasant rather than memorable.

Both are very good with children, but in different ways. Chicago offers big museum days: the coal mine and U-boat at the Museum of Science and Industry, dinosaurs at the Field Museum, the Shedd's belugas and the free Lincoln Park Zoo, all without needing a car. Its winters, though, are harsh.

Myrtle Beach is the classic American family resort, built around gentle surf, lazy rivers, water parks, the boardwalk wheel and mini-golf themed with pirate ships and volcanoes. The drawbacks are summer heat, heavy traffic and spring break weeks, which are best avoided with children.

You can see Chicago without a car. The L runs from both airports into the Loop, and the main sights, from Millennium Park to the Museum Campus, sit within a flat, walkable grid. Getting between outer neighbourhoods often means a bus, and the January wind makes walking hard work.

Myrtle Beach is the opposite: a long resort strip along multi-lane highways, with few pavements and local buses that are of little use to visitors. Walking only works around the boardwalk blocks or along the sand itself, so plan on renting a car and on slow summer traffic along Kings Highway.

One city shops on grand streets and the other in outlet malls, and for anything beyond bargains Chicago is far ahead. The Magnificent Mile has big flagships and vertical malls, Oak Street has the luxury labels, and the old Marshall Field's store on State Street is worth a visit for its Tiffany mosaic ceiling alone. For less familiar names, Wicker Park has independent fashion and record shops, and Andersonville has design and vintage.

Myrtle Beach is set up for discount shopping and beach gear. It has two big outlet centres, huge highway shops full of swimwear and inflatables, and waterfront complexes that mix chain stores with restaurants, while the Market Common is the closest thing to a town centre. The one local craft worth looking for is the sweetgrass basket, sold along the coast road to the south.

Myrtle Beach is the cheaper stay. Its huge number of motels, hotels and condos keeps rooms affordable outside July, and many units have kitchens, which cuts the cost of food. A rental car, restaurant meals and attractions still cost what they do elsewhere in America.

Chicago is expensive, with costly downtown hotels and high taxes on top. It does save money in other ways: you need no car, the L is good value, and the lakefront, Millennium Park and Lincoln Park Zoo are free.

Chicago is one of the best reasons in America to travel for live performance. It has the Chicago Symphony at Symphony Center, a full Lyric Opera season, the Goodman and Steppenwolf, nightly improv at Second City, and blues and jazz clubs where the city's own music still plays.

Myrtle Beach offers big variety revues, dinner shows with knights or pirates, and touring country acts. That makes a polished family evening, but there is nothing for anyone looking for an orchestra, opera or serious drama.

Neither city is a place to come for rest, but each offers some in its own way. Chicago has a bathing culture of sorts: the bathhouse in Wicker Park, open since the early 1900s, with its steam rooms and cold plunges, a Korean-style bathhouse in the suburbs, and warm conservatory glasshouses in winter.

Myrtle Beach has no bathing tradition, only resort and golf-hotel spas, and its main strip is noisy in summer. Its calm comes from where and when you go: the quiet shore around Pawleys Island in spring or autumn.