Johannesburg or Nairobi?

Neither city has a beach. Both sit high on inland plateaus, and swimming in either one means a hotel pool.

The difference lies in what you add on. From Johannesburg, locals go to the dams at Hartbeespoort for a day on the water, while the sea needs a separate flight. Nairobi's Kenyan coast is an hour's flight or a long train ride away, so a few beach days before or after the city are easy to arrange.

Both cities love meat cooked over fire, at the shisa nyama in Soweto and around the nyama choma grills of Nairobi, but Johannesburg's table is wider. Street food such as bunny chow and kotas, Fordsburg's Indian and Middle Eastern cooking, Mozambican peri-peri prawns and a polished restaurant scene in Parkhurst, Rosebank and Sandton, with Cape wines, give you much more to work through.

Nairobi's food is plainer: ugali, chapati, sukuma wiki and pilau, with good Indian and Ethiopian cooking as its real strengths. What it does better is coffee, grown just outside town and served in the cafés of Westlands, Kilimani and Karen.

Both are young cities with no old town to wander, but Johannesburg's history carries far more weight. The Apartheid Museum, the prison turned Constitutional Court on Constitution Hill, and the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Vilakazi Street in Soweto add up to one of the most important stories of the twentieth century. The Origins Centre and the inner city's Art Deco towers add more.

Nairobi's highlights are the National Museum, with its early human fossils, and Karen Blixen's farmhouse, with the Railway Museum as a smaller extra. That fills a day or two, after which most visitors turn to the wildlife.

Both cities go out late and hard, and dance to amapiano among much else. Johannesburg's scene is more spread out and more rooted in house music: Sandton clubs, Braamfontein's student rooftops, Melville's 7th Street, and Soweto grill sessions that start in the afternoon and run into the night.

Nairobi is more concentrated in Westlands, where Afrobeats, gengetone and bongo flava play until dawn, with quieter cocktail bars in Kilimani and local pubs full of football crowds. In both cities, plan to travel door to door by car.

Here Nairobi is far ahead. Its national park starts at the edge of the city, with lions, rhino and giraffes in sight of office towers, and Karura Forest and the Ngong Hills are close by. Within two hours you can reach Lake Naivasha's hippos, Hell's Gate gorge and the crater rim of Longonot.

Johannesburg's outdoors is gentler. The Walter Sisulu Botanical Garden and its black eagles make an easy walk, and the Magaliesberg hills an hour away offer hiking and ballooning. Smaller reserves near town give you a first look at wildlife, but for a full game drive you go to Pilanesberg's volcanic crater, two and a half hours away.

Johannesburg has the better list. Pretoria, with the Union Buildings and its jacaranda streets, is an hour away by the Gautrain, and the Cradle of Humankind's fossil caves are a similar distance north-west. Cullinan's diamond mine and Sun City add more days out.

From Nairobi the choices are thinner: a half day among the Limuru tea estates or the stone hand axes at Olorgesailie. Kenya's great historic towns, Mombasa and Lamu, are too far away for a day trip.

Nairobi gives children the experiences they will remember. They can feed Rothschild's giraffes at the Giraffe Centre, watch baby elephants being bottle-fed at the Sheldrick orphanage, and see a real safari in a single morning in the national park.

Johannesburg's offer is more conventional: Gold Reef City's rides, the zoo, Sci-Bono and lion parks on the outskirts, with large malls for rainy afternoons. Both cities are spread out and hard on pushchairs, so in either one stay in the suburbs near the sights you plan to visit.

Both cities are built for cars, and in both you will rely on ride-hailing or a driver. Johannesburg has one real advantage, the Gautrain, which links the airport, Sandton, Rosebank and Pretoria cleanly and safely.

Nairobi has nothing like it. Its traffic is among Africa's worst, matatu routes are hard to make sense of, and only the central business district is walkable, though the expressway makes the airport run quick.

Johannesburg is the stronger shopping city, with international luxury brands around Nelson Mandela Square in Sandton, a Sunday rooftop craft market in Rosebank, and local design studios in Parkhurst and the converted inner-city warehouses.

Nairobi is better for crafts than for brands. The Maasai Market, which moves around the city through the week, sells beadwork, soapstone and kiondo baskets that you bargain for, and in Karen you can watch glass and ceramic beads being made. Its malls are ordinary, and it has no luxury streets.

Johannesburg is the better value. Restaurant meals, Cape wine and comfortable guesthouses all cost less than you might expect for the standard, and museum entry is modest, although rides and guided tours add up.

In Nairobi, everyday local things are cheap, but visitors rarely live that way. Secure hotels in Westlands or Karen are priced for international guests, and non-residents pay far more than Kenyans for park entry, on top of the cost of a vehicle for game drives.

Johannesburg has the fuller stage. The Market Theatre in Newtown, known for its protest plays under apartheid, still puts on South African drama, and the Soweto Theatre, big musical houses and the Johannesburg Philharmonic broaden it further. Jazz, going back to Sophiatown, has the Joy of Jazz festival as its high point.

Nairobi's strength is live bands playing benga, rumba and Afro-fusion on weekend nights, and the traditional dance shows at Bomas of Kenya. Theatre is mainly at the National Theatre and the Kenya Cultural Centre, and there is a spoken-word and comedy scene.

Neither city is a place to unwind. Both are fast and loud, neither has a bathing tradition, and people in both go elsewhere to rest.

The difference is where you find calm. Johannesburg has reasonably priced hotel and day spas in the northern suburbs, with spa retreats in the Magaliesberg. In Nairobi, peace comes from the garden cottages of Karen and Langata, with cool mornings and breakfast on the veranda.