Dubai or Las Vegas?

Dubai has a real coastline: long, pale sand on the shallow, sheltered water of the Gulf, from the JBR strip at the Marina to Umm Suqeim, where you swim with the Burj Al Arab behind you. For many visitors the beach is the point of the trip, and the private beaches of the Palm Jumeirah resorts are where the days go. The shore is engineered and has no surf, and in midsummer you swim in the early morning or at night.

Las Vegas has no beach to speak of. The closest natural swimming is Boulder Beach on Lake Mead, a gravel shore in a bare, shadeless desert basin. Swimming here means the resort pools, some with wave pools and sand edges, which are fine for a hot afternoon but are nothing like the sea.

Both cities eat mainly the food of other places, but Dubai's version runs deeper. The canteens of Deira, Karama and Al Satwa serve Keralan fish curry, Pakistani karahi, Iranian kebabs and Filipino breakfasts to the people who cook them at home, and the hotel dining rooms and Friday brunch cover the grand end. The limit is drink: alcohol stays inside licensed venues, and juice, karak tea and Arabic coffee fill that gap.

Las Vegas does the top end on a huge scale, with famous-chef outposts, steakhouses, French dining rooms and the buffets the city made famous, all with drink close at hand. Its most rewarding eating is along Spring Mountain Road, where kilometres of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese kitchens stay open late. Away from that, Strip meals come at resort prices and there is little café or market life.

Dubai has something Las Vegas lacks entirely: an old town older than the skyline. Along the Creek, the wind-tower houses of Al Fahidi, the restored Al Shindagha quarter and the abra crossing to the Deira souks show the pearling and trading port it was before oil. The Jumeirah Mosque opens its doors to non-Muslim visitors. Add the Burj Khalifa, the Museum of the Future and the Etihad Museum, and two or three days covers it well.

Las Vegas offers spectacle rather than heritage. The themed resorts with their replica canals, the fountains and the light canopy over Fremont Street fill an evening. The Neon Museum's yard of retired casino signs and the Mob Museum in the old federal courthouse tell the city's short story, and once you have seen those two, there is little else for a sightseer.

Las Vegas is the stronger night out by some distance. Casino bars never close, you can carry a drink along the Strip, and on weekends the resort clubs bring in the biggest-name DJs, with dayclub pool parties filling the afternoon. Downtown, Fremont Street and the arts district add dive bars, cocktail lounges and craft beer for a cheaper, looser evening.

Dubai's night is polished but kept indoors. It happens in rooftop bars above Sheikh Zayed Road, beach clubs on the Palm and dress-code lounges in DIFC, and the long weekend brunch is its own institution. There is no drinking in the street, public drunkenness is taken seriously, and there is no casual bar district, so the evening is glamorous rather than loose.

Las Vegas has far better landscape on its doorstep. Red Rock Canyon, half an hour west, has sandstone cliffs, hiking trails and first-rate rock climbing. Valley of Fire adds petroglyphs and narrow washes, Lake Mead has kayaking, and Mount Charleston rises to over 3,600m with pine forest, cooler summer trails and a little winter skiing. You will need a car for all of it.

Around Dubai the outdoors mostly means dunes: the red sand of Al Marmoom and Lahbab for dune drives, sandboarding and a night in the desert, plus kitesurfing and paddleboarding on the coast and winter flamingos at Ras Al Khor. Hatta's mountains, ninety minutes away, are the only real change of scenery. In both cities the summer heat closes the trails except at dawn.

Dubai has the better set of outings because other cities lie within reach. Abu Dhabi, ninety minutes down the coast, has the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, the Louvre on Saadiyat Island and Qasr Al Watan. Sharjah, right next door, has a restored heritage quarter and its Museum of Islamic Civilization, and Al Ain has UNESCO-listed oases and mud-brick forts.

Las Vegas really has one classic day out: Hoover Dam, combined with the tidy workers' town of Boulder City. The Grand Canyon, Zion and Death Valley trips sold on the Strip are long drives to landscapes, not visits to towns, and the city's isolation shows quickly.

Dubai is one of the easiest big cities to take children to. Legoland and the theme parks near Jebel Ali, the water parks on the Palm, the aquarium in Dubai Mall and the indoor snow at Mall of the Emirates fill a week, and the shallow sea and resort kids' clubs do the rest. Children are welcome in restaurants late into the evening, and the city is very safe.

Las Vegas is built for adults. The route through almost every resort crosses a casino floor where minors cannot stop, and the adult advertising is everywhere. The indoor amusement park, the shark aquarium, the fountains and the Discovery Children's Museum cover a day or two, which is why most families use the city as a stop on the way to the national parks.

Both cities are awkward for pedestrians, but in different ways. Dubai is spread over some 50km of coast, and it has a proper backbone: the driverless metro's Red Line runs from the airport through Downtown to the Marina, the Green Line serves the Creek, and abras cross between Bur Dubai and Deira. The trouble starts between stations, where the walkways are long and the roads wide, so the Palm, the beaches and the theme parks usually mean a taxi.

Las Vegas packs nearly everything into a 6km Strip, yet distances there fool people. The resorts are huge, footbridges and casino interiors stretch every walk, and a monorail behind the east side and round-the-clock buses only partly fill the gaps. Ride-hailing does most of the work, and you need a car for the desert.

Dubai is the bigger shopping destination, and it has a second side that Las Vegas lacks. The Dubai Mall and the Mall of the Emirates hold nearly every luxury and high-street name, with especially deep jewellery and watch halls, and the Shopping Festival fills the winter with sales. Across the Creek, the Gold Souk, the spice and perfume souks with their saffron and oud, and the Bur Dubai textile souk give you something you can only buy here.

Las Vegas does the mall well: the Roman-themed arcade at Caesars Palace, the canal-side shops of the Venetian and the Fashion Show mall, plus two outlet centres for bargains, all open late. But there is no market, bazaar or craft tradition, so local souvenirs are hard to find.

Neither city is a budget trip, and in both the cost depends on when you book. Dubai's swing is seasonal: the winter high season makes resorts, observation decks and theme parks dear, and alcohol is among the most expensive anywhere, but hotel rates drop sharply in the summer heat. Meals in Deira and Karama are very cheap, and the metro and abras cost little.

Las Vegas swings by the day of the week. Midweek rooms can be good value and downtown is cheaper again, but weekends and big conventions multiply the rate, and resort fees get added on. Cocktails, clubs and headline shows then push the bill up, and eating in Chinatown is the main way to claw some back.

Las Vegas is one of the world's great show towns. Its resorts have permanent theatres for long-running water spectacles, aerial acts, magicians and comedians, and major pop and country stars take residencies there, so you can see acts that rarely tour. The Smith Center downtown adds touring Broadway, the city's philharmonic and ballet.

Dubai is a stop on other people's tours. The dhow-shaped Dubai Opera hosts visiting ballet, opera and musicals in the cooler months, and the arena brings international concerts, but there is no resident company and no theatre district. You plan around a booked show rather than stumbling on one.

Dubai has a way out of the city that Las Vegas cannot match: desert retreats an hour inland, with silence, starry nights and treatments among the dunes. Back on the coast, the resort spas of Palm Jumeirah and the Jumeirah shore give whole floors to hammam rituals, Moroccan scrubs and hydrotherapy pools, and because they are indoors they work as well in August as in January.

The Las Vegas spas are just as big, with thermal circuits, saunas and salt and ice rooms, and non-guests can buy a day pass. The difficulty is the casino noise and light just outside the spa door, day and night. Stay in a non-gaming hotel on the Strip, book your treatments for the morning and spend the afternoon by the pool, and it becomes restful enough.