Kansas City or Milwaukee?

Kansas City is about as far from open water as a big American city gets. Its swimming means county-park lakes and pools, and they're useful for cooling children down, not for planning a trip around.

Milwaukee at least has a real shoreline. Bradford Beach under the East Side bluffs has sand, volleyball and a summer weekend crowd, and Lake Michigan stretches to the horizon like a sea. The water is cold for most of the year, though, so the beach is a pleasant extra in July and August.

Kansas City has the more compelling food reason to visit, and it comes down to barbecue. Hickory smoke, thick sweet sauce and burnt ends make a whole style of their own, and working through the smokehouses is a trip in itself. The steakhouses and the River Market's immigrant counters back it up.

Milwaukee eats by ritual rather than by a single dish. You get the Friday fish fry, frozen custard, cheese curds, a supper club with a relish tray, and beer brewed nearby. It's satisfying and very regional, but it doesn't pull visitors in the way Kansas City's barbecue does.

Kansas City has a slight edge, mostly because its museums carry more weight. The Nelson-Atkins is a major collection with outstanding Chinese art, the WWI Museum is the national museum of that war, and the Negro Leagues and jazz museums at 18th and Vine tell stories you won't find elsewhere.

Milwaukee's strengths are architecture and atmosphere. Calatrava's winged art museum on the lake, the Harley-Davidson Museum, the Pabst Mansion and the cream-brick Third Ward all show off its brewing-era wealth, and its old streets hang together better than Kansas City's scattered landmarks.

Milwaukee is the better night out, mainly thanks to the corner tavern, an old-fashioned neighbourhood bar of regulars that turns up all over the city. In summer, beer gardens and patios fill up and Brady Street and Walker's Point give you more to choose from.

Kansas City's nights are split between districts that are a drive apart. There's the enclosed sports-bar block of Power and Light, the student strip in Westport, and quieter craft-beer bars in the Crossroads. Neither city has much in the way of clubs.

Milwaukee has far more outdoors on its doorstep. Olmsted's Lake Park, the ravines and bluffs, long flat bike trails along the shore and a river you can kayak all sit within the city. Kettle Moraine's glacial lakes and hills are close enough for a day out.

Around Kansas City, the land is rolling prairie and farmland. Swope Park is huge and Loose Park's roses are lovely, but for proper hiking you have to drive several hours to the Ozarks.

Milwaukee wins easily here. Chicago is an hour and a half away by train, which gives you a whole second city with no car needed. Madison, Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings in Racine, the company village of Kohler and the old mills of Cedarburg add more variety.

Kansas City's outings are modest and need a car. Truman's home in Independence, the college main street in Lawrence, antebellum Weston and the Jesse James house in St Joseph each fill a pleasant half day, but none of them is famous enough to plan around.

Both are easy, friendly cities for children, with big zoos, straightforward parking and relaxed baseball evenings. Kansas City has the thrill rides: Worlds of Fun with its roller coasters and water park, and the cluster of Science City, an aquarium and Legoland Discovery around Union Station and Crown Center.

Milwaukee's appeal is calmer and more tied to the lake. Discovery World, the glass Domes and the beach and festival grounds fill a summer stay. Winter limits both cities, but Milwaukee's long, cold months bite harder.

Milwaukee is somewhat easier without a car. Downtown, the Third Ward and the lakefront are compact, the Riverwalk links them on foot, and buses reach the zoo and the East Side.

In Kansas City, the Main Street streetcar is the only practical transit line, and anywhere off it means driving. Both cities still want a car or ride-hailing for their outlying sights.

Kansas City has the better shopping, mainly because of the Country Club Plaza. Its 1920s Spanish-style courtyards gather upmarket and chain stores in one walkable place, and the Crossroads adds galleries and vintage shops.

Milwaukee's shopping is mostly small boutiques in the Third Ward warehouses and food gifts from the Public Market. Here the best souvenirs are cheese, sausage and Harley-Davidson gear rather than clothes.

Both are cheap by American standards and ordinary by everyone else's, with modest hotel rates, tax and tips on every bill, and a hire car for anything outside the centre. The savings come from different places. Kansas City's Nelson-Atkins doesn't charge for general entry, and its barbecue lunches are filling.

Milwaukee's lakefront, parks and many festivals cost little, and tavern beer is cheap. The catch is that big summer weekends push its hotel rates up.

Kansas City has the more distinctive music scene. It gave its name to a hard-swinging, blues-based style of jazz, the one Count Basie and Charlie Parker came out of, and small clubs around 18th and Vine and in Midtown still play it most nights, often with jam sessions running late. For a more formal evening, the pleated-shell Kauffman Center houses the symphony, opera and ballet, and the open-air Starlight Theatre stages musicals in summer.

Milwaukee has a full set of resident companies and the ornate 1895 Pabst Theater, but its standout is Summerfest, which fills the lakefront festival grounds with hundreds of acts each summer. In those weeks it is a strong counterweight. For the rest of the year, Kansas City's jazz gives you more to plan an evening around.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, and in both, wellness mostly means hotel spas. Milwaukee comes out a little ahead. A slow walk along the lake or the Riverwalk is genuinely restful, and the resort spa at Kohler is an easy drive away.

Kansas City's nearest equivalent is the old mineral-water town of Excelsior Springs. Inside the city, quiet time means the rose garden in Loose Park or the Nelson-Atkins sculpture lawn.