Kansas City or Memphis?

Neither city is a swimming destination, since both lie deep inland. Kansas City at least has sandy lake beaches in county parks at the edge of the metro area, which are fine for an afternoon with children. The Mississippi at Memphis is off limits, so cooling down there means a pool, a splash pad or a drive to a country lake.

Both are serious barbecue cities, so the real choice is which style. Kansas City is about beef and sauce: hickory-smoked brisket, burnt ends and a thick, sweet glaze, with old cattle-town steakhouses on the side. Memphis is about pork, with dry-rubbed ribs, pulled-shoulder sandwiches and oddities like barbecue spaghetti.

Away from the pit, Kansas City has more range, with the Vietnamese, Ethiopian and Middle Eastern counters of the River Market and the Westside's Mexican kitchens. Memphis has deeper Southern cooking instead: fried chicken, catfish, greens and Delta tamales.

Memphis has the sights with more pull. Graceland, Sun Studio and the Stax Museum take rock and soul back to the rooms where they began. The National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel is one of the most powerful museum visits in the country.

Kansas City's strengths are of a different kind. The Nelson-Atkins is a great art museum, with its Chinese collection and Oldenburg shuttlecocks, and the National WWI Museum stands under the Liberty Memorial. Union Station and the Plaza add architecture worth seeing, but two or three days covers the main list.

Memphis is the better night out, mostly because of Beale Street, where you can carry a drink from bar to bar and the crowd stays out late. Overton Square and Cooper-Young are the calmer local alternative. Kansas City spreads its evenings across Power and Light, Westport and the Crossroads, which are friendly but quiet outside the weekend. Neither city has much club culture, and in both you need a ride between districts.

Neither city has dramatic scenery, but Memphis gives a visitor more to do outdoors. You can walk or cycle across the Mississippi on the Big River Crossing, watch the sunset from the bluffs, or ride the Greenline out to Shelby Farms, with its bison and paddling lakes.

Kansas City's prairie and river country is gentler still. Swope Park is huge, Loose Park has a fine rose garden, and the reservoirs at the edge of town offer boating and wooded walks. For real hiking, though, you face a drive of several hours to the Ozarks.

Memphis has the better day trips by some distance. Highway 61 runs south into the Delta, to Clarksdale's juke joints and the markers of the Blues Trail. Oxford has Faulkner's house and a handsome courthouse square, and Tupelo and Shiloh are each about two hours away.

From Kansas City the outings are milder: the old trail town of Independence, the university town of Lawrence, antebellum Weston and St Joseph's Pony Express museum. Both lists need a car.

Kansas City is far easier with children. Worlds of Fun and its water park, the large zoo, Science City inside Union Station and the aquarium at Crown Center fill several full days. Free indoor play and summer fountains help between them.

Memphis has a fine zoo in Overton Park, a children's museum, the Pink Palace planetarium and the much-loved Peabody ducks. But its main sights speak more to teenagers, and its sticky summers are harder on small children.

Both are driving cities, and a hired car or ride-hailing will carry most of either trip. What differs is the stretch you can manage without one. Kansas City's streetcar runs along Main Street from the River Market through downtown, Union Station and Crown Center towards Midtown, so staying on that line covers a car-free day or two.

Memphis has a compact, walkable downtown, where Beale Street, the riverfront and the Civil Rights Museum are close together and heritage trolleys run along Main Street. Graceland, Midtown and Shelby Farms are all well beyond walking distance.

Kansas City has the better shopping, chiefly because of the Country Club Plaza, an outdoor 1920s district of tiled towers and courtyards with upmarket stores. The Crossroads adds galleries and vintage shops. Memphis has no central shopping street. Its finds are vinyl, Elvis memorabilia and small boutiques on Broad Avenue and in Cooper-Young, with mainstream stores in the suburban malls.

Memphis is the somewhat cheaper stay, with reasonably priced hotels and barbecue or soul-food plates that fill you up for little. Kansas City undercuts the coastal cities, and free general entry to the Nelson-Atkins helps, but overall it costs about what an ordinary American city does. In both, a hired car, tips and paid attractions such as Graceland or Worlds of Fun push the total up.

Jazz is the sound of Kansas City, and blues and soul are the sound of Memphis. Kansas City gave the world the hard-swinging style of Count Basie and Charlie Parker, and its small clubs around 18th and Vine still run late jam sessions. The Kauffman Center adds a polished season of symphony, opera and ballet.

Memphis plays louder and longer. House bands on Beale Street start in the afternoon, and in summer there are free concerts on the lawn at the Levitt Shell, where Elvis once played. Its concert-hall side is smaller.

Neither city is a place to come for rest, and both offer little beyond hotel and day spas. Kansas City has a slight edge in Excelsior Springs, an old mineral-water resort about forty minutes north. In Memphis, the quiet moments are early walks in Overton Park and evenings on the bluffs above the river.