Dallas or Houston?

Neither city is on the sea, but only Houston can reach it easily. Galveston Island is about an hour away. It has sand below the seawall, long quiet beaches at the West End and warm, shallow Gulf water that is cloudy but fine for a family day.

From Dallas the same coast is four hours or more away, so swimming means the park beaches at Lewisville Lake or Grapevine Lake, with their brown shores, or a hotel pool and the water parks in Arlington.

Both cities do the Texan basics well: brisket, Tex-Mex and tacos. Both also keep their most varied food out in the suburbs, where you need a car to reach it. Houston goes further, with Gulf oysters and redfish, Vietnamese-Cajun crawfish boils in spring, and Nigerian, Pakistani and Salvadoran neighbourhoods alongside the Asiatown on Bellaire Boulevard.

Dallas answers with a strong steakhouse tradition, the frozen margarita machine invented in the city, and the Vietnamese and Korean strips in Richardson and Carrollton. It is good eating, but the range is narrower and there is no seafood to match Houston's.

In both cities the culture is mostly indoors, and neither has much old street fabric to wander. Dallas has the one sight that draws people from everywhere, the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. It adds the Arts District's museums, packed into a few walkable blocks, and the Art Deco exhibition halls of Fair Park.

Houston's strength is depth in art and space: the Museum of Fine Arts, the Menil Collection and the Rothko Chapel in Montrose, and mission control at Space Center Houston. Put simply, Dallas is about one moment in history, and Houston is about its collections.

The two are much alike here. Both spread their nights across several districts, close at 2am and need a ride-hail between areas. The difference is in character. Dallas has the scruffy edge of Deep Ellum's dive bars and the polished cocktail lounges of Uptown. Houston leans towards Montrose's long-established gay bars and the open-sided icehouses that suit its warm evenings.

Both sit on flat country, prairie and post oak woodland around Dallas and coastal prairie and bayous around Houston, and neither landscape is dramatic. Dallas offers the Katy Trail, the loop round White Rock Lake and short hikes on the limestone escarpments of Cedar Ridge Preserve. Houston has paddling on Buffalo Bayou, alligators at Brazos Bend and the spring bird migration on the coast near Galveston, its one real draw for wildlife watchers.

Dallas has much the better day trips. Fort Worth is about forty-five minutes away by car or train and feels like a different city, with the longhorn drive at the Stockyards and the Kimbell Art Museum in Louis Kahn's building. The courthouse squares of McKinney, Denton and Granbury fill further days.

Houston's day trips rest mostly on Galveston, where the Strand's iron-fronted buildings and the Victorian East End make a good outing. Beyond that there are the San Jacinto battlefield and the farm towns around Brenham. Austin and San Antonio are too far to visit and return in a day.

Both work well with children. Hotels and restaurants are easy, and both involve a lot of driving and a summer heat that pushes outdoor plans to the morning. Dallas leans towards thrills: the theme park and water park side by side in Arlington, two large zoos nearby and the State Fair at Fair Park each autumn. Houston leans towards discovery, with Space Center Houston, the zoo and the museums grouped together around Hermann Park, and a beach at Galveston.

Both cities are built for the car, and in either one most visitors hire a car or rely on ride-hailing. Dallas depends on it a little less. Its DART light rail is long enough to reach Fair Park, Deep Ellum and some of the suburbs, and the TRE commuter train runs to Fort Worth. Downtown, the Arts District and Uptown can also be walked as one area, linked by the free vintage streetcar on McKinney Avenue.

Houston is harder to get around. Its one useful rail line runs from downtown through Midtown and the Museum District to the medical centre, and the bus network is wide but slow. The sights lie many kilometres apart, the heat and missing pavements make walking unpleasant beyond downtown and the museums, and anyone driving should allow time for rush-hour traffic.

On shopping the two are close: big luxury malls, Western boots and hats as the local buy, few markets, and a drive between every centre. Dallas has the longer retail pedigree, because a famous department store was founded here more than a century ago. It also has Highland Park Village, a Spanish-style open-air centre from the 1930s where the European fashion houses gather.

Houston's huge Uptown mall draws shoppers from Mexico and Latin America. Its smaller shops are easier to browse on foot, in the boutique grid of Rice Village and the vintage stores along 19th Street in the Heights.

Costs come out about the same. Both are moderately priced for big American cities, with reasonable hotels, cheap barbecue and tacos, free museums and the same hidden cost of a hire car or ride-hails. In Dallas the expensive end is Uptown's steakhouses and cocktail bars. In Houston it is the big paid family attractions, Space Center Houston above all, while the bayou parks cost nothing.

Houston has the fuller programme. Its downtown Theater District has the well-regarded opera and ballet sharing the Wortham Center, the symphony at Jones Hall and the Alley Theatre staging plays all year. In summer, the open-air Miller Outdoor Theatre in Hermann Park puts on free shows.

Dallas has fine buildings in its Arts District, I. M. Pei's Meyerson for the symphony and the Winspear for opera. Deep Ellum, a blues and jazz district since the 1920s, gives it the longer live-music history. Houston's small venues answer with zydeco and the city's own hip-hop.

Neither city is built for rest, and in both, relaxing means hotel spas or a Korean-style bathhouse. Where you find quiet differs. In Dallas it is a slow morning at White Rock Lake. In Houston it is an hour in the Rothko Chapel or on the Menil Collection's lawns.