Galveston or Memphis?

Galveston has a real beach and Memphis has none. Most of the island's Gulf side is sand, from the busy strip below the Seawall to the family beaches at Stewart and East Beach and the quieter West End, and the water is very warm through the summer. It is brown-green and murky rather than clear, though, and rip currents near the jetties mean you should swim near a lifeguard.

In Memphis the Mississippi is a working river full of barges and strong currents, and nobody swims in it. A hot day there ends at a hotel pool, a splash pad or a lake out of town.

Memphis is the stronger food destination, with a barbecue style of its own: dry-rubbed ribs, pulled pork sandwiches with slaw and local oddities like barbecue spaghetti. Soul food, catfish and Delta tamales back it up, and Cooper-Young and Midtown add craft beer and a few modern Southern kitchens.

Galveston eats well but simply. The food centres on Gulf oysters, shrimp, snapper and gumbo by the water, with Tex-Mex and po'boys alongside. Much of it is fried platters for the beach crowds, and the more interesting independent places cluster around the Strand. Neither city has much fine dining or international range.

Memphis has the weightier sights. Graceland, Sun Studio and the Stax museum tell the story of American popular music in the places where it was made. The National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel is one of the most moving museums in the country. The historic centre is patchy, though, so most of your time goes to museums.

Galveston works the other way round. It has few major museums but is a better place to wander, with the cast-iron Victorian fronts of the Strand, the porch-lined East End, Bishop's Palace and the tall ship Elissa, and the 1900 storm runs through the whole island's story.

Memphis stays out later. Beale Street is a party strip closed to traffic where people carry their drinks from bar to bar late into the night, and Midtown's Overton Square and Cooper-Young have calmer bars and beer gardens.

In Galveston, an evening out means a glass of wine in a pub on the Strand or a beach-bar patio on the Seawall. These are busy on summer weekends and quiet the rest of the time, with Mardi Gras the big exception. Neither city has much club life.

Galveston has the more rewarding outdoors, though it is about water and birds rather than scenery. The island lies on a major migration flyway, so in spring warblers, spoonbills and shorebirds fill Bolivar Flats and High Island. The state park adds marsh trails and bay paddling, and fishing from the piers is a big local pastime.

Memphis offers green space within a city. You can walk or cycle across the Mississippi on the Big River Crossing, visit the lakes and bison of Shelby Farms Park or walk in the old-growth woods of Overton Park. Both places are flat, and both are best in spring and autumn.

Both cities have a decent list of outings, all by car, but they point in different directions. From Galveston the draws are Space Center Houston and Houston's Museum District, with the Menil Collection and the Rothko Chapel, plus the boardwalk at Kemah and the San Jacinto Monument.

From Memphis the road runs south along Highway 61 into the Delta, to the juke joints and blues museum of Clarksdale and the Blues Trail markers. Faulkner's house in Oxford, Elvis's birthplace in Tupelo and the battlefield at Shiloh are also within reach. Galveston's outings lean towards space and big-city museums, Memphis's towards music and Southern history.

Galveston is built for families. Moody Gardens has glass pyramids holding an aquarium, a rainforest and a science centre for hot or wet days, and there is also a waterpark, rides on the Seawall pier and warm shallow water at Stewart Beach. The free ferry to Bolivar, often with dolphins alongside, is an outing in itself.

Memphis has a fine zoo in Overton Park, the Children's Museum, the Pink Palace planetarium and the Peabody ducks, which is enough for a few days. Its main sights on music and civil rights speak more to teenagers than to small children.

Neither is easy without a car, but the reasons differ. Galveston is a long, thin island. The area around the Strand is walkable, a heritage trolley and a bus reach parts of the Seawall, and cycling the flat beachfront works well outside high summer, but Moody Gardens and the West End need a car. Getting to the island from Houston's airports is also a drive.

Memphis spreads low and wide. Graceland, Midtown and Shelby Farms are far from the walkable downtown, the buses are of little use to visitors, and ride-hailing fills the gaps.

Neither city is a shopping destination, and in both, serious shoppers end up driving: to Houston from Galveston, and to the eastern suburbs in Memphis. What differs is what you browse. Galveston's Strand and Postoffice Street have antiques, galleries and sweet shops in Victorian storefronts, while Memphis is best for vintage vinyl in its record shops and the small boutiques of Cooper-Young and Broad Avenue.

Memphis goes a little further on the same budget. Hotels are reasonably priced away from the busiest downtown weekends, and a barbecue or soul-food lunch is cheap and filling, though Graceland and the other music sights charge full admission.

Galveston is fairly priced for an American beach town, with free public beaches, motels and rental houses, but Seawall hotels charge much more on summer weekends and at Mardi Gras. In both cities a car, tips and tax add to every day, and prices in Memphis jump during the spring festivals.

Memphis is by far the stronger music city. The clubs on Beale Street have blues and soul bands from the afternoon onwards every day of the year, Midtown venues add rock and hip-hop, and the Levitt Shell in Overton Park puts on free outdoor concerts in the warm months. The Orpheum, a symphony, an opera company and a respected ballet company cover the formal side.

In Galveston, the highlight is an evening at the restored Grand 1894 Opera House, for a touring show or a concert by the community symphony. Otherwise there are cover bands in the bars.

Galveston is the better place to do very little. The island's rhythm is set by the sea: a morning swim in the warm Gulf, a long lazy stretch on the sand, a cycle along the seafront once the sun drops, and in the cooler months whole days with nowhere in particular to be. The big resort hotels can book you a massage, but you come for the slow pace, not for treatments.

Memphis is harder to unwind in, because a visit there usually means museums, smokehouses and music running late into the night. Rest comes in the gaps between them, such as a shady park walk before the heat builds or an hour at dusk watching the Mississippi slide past. Spas are mostly in hotels or out in the suburbs, and neither city has a bathing tradition worth building a trip around.