Dallas or Denver?

Neither city is a place to swim, and both send you to reservoirs on the urban fringe. Dallas's big lakes, Lewisville, Grapevine and Ray Hubbard, stay warm through a long summer but have plain, muddy-brown shores, so Arlington's water parks are often the better bet. Denver's Cherry Creek and Chatfield beaches are sandy, while its mountain lakes stay cold even in July.

Dallas has the richer table. Brisket sold by weight, Tex-Mex with frozen margaritas, a serious steakhouse tradition and tacos from Oak Cliff trucks are its home ground, and the suburbs add real depth: Vietnamese and Chinese in Richardson and Garland, a Koreatown in Carrollton, South Asian food in Irving.

Denver eats well but more casually. Its pride is beer, poured in RiNo warehouse taprooms, plus green chile, breakfast burritos and Colorado lamb or bison. Federal Boulevard gives it a good run of Vietnamese and Mexican cooking, but fine dining is thinner than in Dallas.

Dallas has the one sight with pull far beyond Texas: the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, where the Kennedy assassination is told from the window itself. The Arts District then puts the Dallas Museum of Art, the Nasher and the Crow Museum within a few blocks, and Fair Park's Art Deco halls are worth the trip out.

Denver's sights are smaller in scale but keep more of the old city standing. The brick warehouses of LoDo, Larimer Square and Union Station give a walkable Western streetscape that glass-tower Dallas lacks, and the Denver Art Museum's Native American collection and the Clyfford Still Museum make a strong pair.

Dallas offers the bigger night out, with distinct districts for different moods: scruffy, late Deep Ellum, polished Uptown patios and cocktail lounges, and the rooftops of Lower Greenville. Denver keeps things to bars and breweries, from LoDo sports crowds to RiNo taprooms and East Colfax dives, with only a small club scene. Both cities stop serving at 2am, so neither runs till dawn.

This is where Denver pulls far ahead. Red Rocks and the trails above Golden are half an hour away, the Flatirons a little further, and beyond them rise summits over 4,000m and the alpine tundra and elk of Rocky Mountain National Park. Winter adds the big ski resorts within a couple of hours' drive, and the dry, sunny climate keeps you outdoors all year.\n\nDallas has gentler pleasures: the White Rock Lake loop, the Katy Trail, the Great Trinity Forest and limestone walks at Cedar Ridge Preserve. The prairie around it is flat, and summer heat drives most activity into the early morning.

The two are about even, but the shape of the outings differs. From Dallas there is one excellent day out, Fort Worth, with its Stockyards cattle drive and the Kimbell Art Museum, reachable even by commuter train; after that come courthouse squares in McKinney and Denton and the Grapevine wineries.

Denver offers a longer string of smaller places: Boulder under the Flatirons, Victorian mining towns at Georgetown and Idaho Springs, Manitou Springs and Estes Park. Almost all of them need a car, and the drive is half the point.

Both cities work well with children, in different ways. Dallas leans towards big attractions: Six Flags and a water park in Arlington, the Perot Museum, the Dallas World Aquarium and, in autumn, the State Fair rides at Fair Park. The catch is summer heat that makes outdoor days hard from June to September.

Denver groups its zoo and nature museum, with dinosaurs and a planetarium, in City Park, and adds easy trails, scenic railways and mining towns for older children. There the care needed is with altitude and strong sun rather than heat.

Denver is the easier of the two without a car, at least in the centre. LoDo, Union Station, the 16th Street Mall and the Civic Center museums sit within a flat walk, a free shuttle runs the mall, and a train links the airport to Union Station.

Dallas spreads its sights miles apart along freeways. DART light rail helps for the airports, Fair Park and Deep Ellum, and the M-Line streetcar ties Uptown to downtown, but most days mean ride-hails or a hire car. In both cities, the trips out of town need wheels.

Dallas is the clear choice for shopping. It is the home of Neiman Marcus, NorthPark Center mixes labels with art, and Highland Park Village gathers the European fashion houses in a 1930s Spanish-style setting. Custom Western boots and hats add a local speciality.

Denver has Cherry Creek's upscale mall and boutiques but little luxury beyond it. Its own strengths are outdoor gear flagships and the vintage clothes and record shops of South Broadway.

Dallas is the cheaper of the two, and the difference shows most in the hotel bill. A room by the freeways or in the Dallas suburbs costs less than a downtown bed in Denver, which climbs further in ski season and when a convention is in town. In Denver, the way to save is to stay out along the light rail and accept the ride in.

Eating out is closer. Dallas barbecue counters, taco trucks and Tex-Mex give a cheap lunch, much as Denver's taquerias and brewery meals do, and in both cities tax and tip push up any sit-down bill, with Uptown steakhouses and cocktail bars the steepest in Dallas. The car costs about the same in both, as a hire car or a steady run of ride-hails. Where Dallas saves you money with its free or low-cost museums, Denver's savings are outdoors, on parks, trails and mountain views that cost nothing.

The two are close, but Denver has the venue people travel for: Red Rocks Amphitheatre, a stage set between sandstone monoliths, where a summer concert feels like an event in itself. Its multi-block performing arts centre in town covers theatre, symphony, opera and ballet, and Five Points keeps its jazz roots.

Dallas offers more striking concert halls, with I. M. Pei's Meyerson Symphony Center and the Winspear Opera House in the Arts District, and the Van Cliburn competition at Bass Hall in Fort Worth. Deep Ellum adds blues, rock and Texas dancehall sounds most nights.

Denver is the better place to unwind, mainly because of what lies just outside it. Idaho Springs, under an hour west, has historic mineral pools and steam caves, larger hot-spring resorts make easy overnight trips, and the city's outdoor, sunny pace helps too.

Dallas relies on hotel spas and day-spa chains, with one standout in its large Korean-style bathhouse in the north of the city. Otherwise, rest means a hotel pool or a quiet morning at White Rock Lake.