Hobart or Sydney?

This is where the two differ most. Hobart has sand at Sandy Bay, Long Beach, Kingston Beach and Seven Mile Beach. With the water below 18°C even at its warmest, these are places for a walk or a bracing swim.

Sydney is a true beach city. It has ocean surf from Bondi to Coogee and along the Northern Beaches, calm netted coves such as Balmoral inside the harbour, and water warm enough to swim from late spring well into autumn. The surf beaches have rips, so swim between the flags.

Hobart's food comes from the island itself: oysters and mussels, salmon, scallop pies, cheese and summer cherries. Pinot noir and single malt are made a short drive away in the Coal River Valley. The produce is excellent, but there are few restaurants and the range of cuisines is narrow.

Sydney matches it on seafood, with the Pyrmont fish market at its centre, and adds what Hobart cannot. Whole suburbs cook Vietnamese, Lebanese, Indian and Chinese food, the top restaurants are serious, and coffee and brunch are taken seriously too. For a long stay with a different meal every night, Sydney is well ahead.

The two are fairly even, and both tell the convict story through World Heritage sites. More of Hobart's past survives on its streets, in the 1830s sandstone warehouses of Salamanca Place and the Georgian lanes of Battery Point. It also has MONA, a cliffside museum unlike anything else in Australia.

Sydney's culture is about landmarks and collections in a mostly modern city. The Opera House and Harbour Bridge come first, then The Rocks, Hyde Park Barracks and the Aboriginal art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Neither city needs more than a few days.

Hobart's evenings mean pubs, wine bars and whisky bars around Salamanca Place and Elizabeth Street in North Hobart. They are busy at weekends and when the yacht crews arrive at New Year, and quiet the rest of the time.

Sydney has much more choice. There are basement cocktail bars in the CBD, the LGBTQ scene on Oxford Street, and Newtown and Enmore stay out later. Neither is a club city, but in Sydney you have somewhere to go on any night of the week.

Both are excellent for the outdoors, but the landscapes differ. Hobart has a mountain: kunanyi/Mount Wellington rises to about 1,270m straight behind the town. Within a couple of hours are the Tasman Peninsula's sea cliffs and the Three Capes walk, Bruny Island's penguins, the tall forests of Mount Field and the edge of the southwest wilderness.

Sydney's nature is coastal and sunny. There are clifftop walks from Bondi to Coogee, the trails of the Royal National Park, surfing and paddling in the harbour, and whales passing in winter and spring, with the Blue Mountains two hours west. Hobart is cooler and wilder, while in Sydney a walk is easily combined with a swim.

Hobart has the better day trips, and they are closer. Port Arthur's convict ruins are about an hour and a half away and Georgian Richmond half an hour. The Huon Valley, the car ferry to Bruny Island and the sandstone towns of the midlands fill more days with orchards, cellar doors and coast.

From Sydney, outings mean longer drives with fewer places at the end. The main ones are the Hunter Valley wineries, the old guesthouse towns of the Blue Mountains and the Southern Highlands, with Parramatta and Newcastle reachable by train. Both cities work best with a car.

Hobart is calm and safe with children. The wildlife sanctuaries with Tasmanian devils and wombats, penguin spotting and short forest walks go down well with older children. There is no zoo, aquarium or theme park, though, and the cool weather limits beach days.

Sydney is much easier for families. You can take the ferry to Taronga Zoo, visit the aquarium and board the ships in Darling Harbour, see the Australian Museum's dinosaurs and ride the rides at Luna Park. The netted harbour beaches have gentle water for younger children.

Hobart's centre is small enough to walk, from the CBD to Salamanca Place and Battery Point, though the streets climb steeply. The buses are limited, and almost everything outside town needs a hire car.

Sydney is spread much wider, but trains, metro, light rail, buses and ferries all take one tap-on card. The harbour ferries are a sight in themselves. In Sydney you can manage without a car until you leave the city, while in Hobart most visitors rent one early.

Hobart's shopping is mainly the Saturday Salamanca Market and the warehouse galleries, which sell Huon pine, glass, gin and whisky. Sydney has far more: international flagships around Pitt Street Mall, the Victorian arcades of the Queen Victoria Building and the Strand, Paddington's local designers and a real speciality in Australian swimwear. Go to Hobart for crafts to take home and to Sydney for clothes.

Hobart is the cheaper of the two, and most of the saving is on accommodation. Its hotels cost less than Sydney's, although the good waterfront rooms are pricier through summer and around the New Year yacht race. Other costs eat into that saving. Entry to the main sights is not cheap, the buses do little beyond the city, and every outing to the peninsula, the valleys or the national parks adds car hire and fuel.

Sydney's big costs are the harbour and beach hotels, which are dearest in summer and during big events, and eating and drinking out. Getting around costs less than you might expect. Fares are capped, so a ferry or train every day adds little, and you need no car in the city. The beaches, coastal walks, parks and main galleries cost nothing, which narrows the gap. Still, the nightly rate means Sydney comes out dearer overall.

Hobart's stages are few but historic. The Theatre Royal is Australia's oldest working theatre, and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra plays on the waterfront. What sets the city apart are the MONA festivals, especially the midwinter one, and a visit works best timed around them.

Sydney has much more on any night. Opera Australia and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra perform at the Opera House, and there is Sydney Theatre Company at Walsh Bay, bold Australian drama at Belvoir, Bangarra's dance and the musicals in the big George Street theatres. You can find a performance without planning your dates around one.

Hobart offers rest through its slow pace: quiet sandstone streets, clean air, the Botanical Gardens and a few day spas. For anything more, visitors book a lodge or retreat in the countryside.

Sydney has a bathing tradition of its own in the ocean pools cut into the rock at Bondi, Bronte and Coogee. Locals swim there at dawn, and Wylie's Baths and McIver's Ladies Baths keep an unhurried, old-fashioned feel. Korean-style bathhouses add steam and soaking.