Kansas City or Nashville?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Nashville makes a little more of summer water. Percy Priest and Old Hickory lakes sit close to town and stay warm through the long summer. They suit an afternoon on a pontoon boat as much as a swim.

Kansas City's equivalent is the sandy lake beaches in county parks at the edge of the metro area, plus hotel and public pools. They are fine for children on a hot day but less of a draw than Nashville's lakes.

Both cities eat equally well, but each has a different signature. Kansas City is a barbecue town first: hickory-smoked meat, sweet molasses sauce, burnt ends and steakhouses left over from its cattle days. The River Market's Vietnamese and Ethiopian counters and the Westside's Mexican kitchens are the main alternatives.

Nashville spreads wider across the Southern table, with hot chicken graded by heat, meat-and-three cafeterias, biscuits and Tennessee whiskey. Chef-led restaurants in East Nashville and Germantown and Kurdish and Vietnamese places along Nolensville Pike round it out. Choose by which plate you want to eat, because neither scene is deeper than the other.

Kansas City has the weightier museums. The Nelson-Atkins is a major general art collection with fine Chinese holdings, and the National WWI Museum is the country's main museum of that war. The Negro Leagues and jazz museums at 18th and Vine add stories you will not find anywhere else.

Nashville's sights are mostly about one subject, music, led by the Country Music Hall of Fame and a daytime tour of the Ryman. The Parthenon replica, the Frist and the Hermitage add some range, but a visitor with no interest in country music will find more to see in Kansas City.

Nashville is the better night out by a wide margin. Lower Broadway is one long strip of honky-tonks with live bands on every floor until the small hours. East Nashville has quieter dive bars and cocktail lounges if you want to get away from the hen parties.

Kansas City's nights are split between the sports bars of the Power and Light District, the student bars of Westport and the calmer craft-beer places in the Crossroads, and you need a car or a ride to get between them. It is an easy, friendly night out, but the city goes quiet early on weeknights.

Nashville has the greener setting. Radnor Lake and the Warner Parks put real woodland walks inside the city, the Harpeth River suits a gentle paddle, and the Natchez Trace Parkway starts just south of town.

Kansas City is surrounded by open prairie and farmland, which is pleasant rather than scenic. In town, Swope Park and the rose garden in Loose Park are good, and the reservoirs on the edge of the metro area offer boating. Proper hiking country such as the Ozarks, though, is several hours' drive away.

Nashville's outings are more interesting. Within half an hour you reach Franklin, with its preserved Main Street and Civil War battlefields. The distilleries around Lynchburg make a whiskey-country day, and Chattanooga is just about possible as a long day out.

From Kansas City the list is shorter and quieter: Truman's home in Independence, the university town of Lawrence, the antebellum houses of Weston and the Pony Express museum in St Joseph. From either city you need a car to reach them.

Kansas City is easier with children. An amusement park with a water park next door, a big zoo, Science City inside Union Station and the aquarium and Lego centre at Crown Center fill several days, and the summer fountains help in the heat.

Nashville has a good zoo, the Adventure Science Center and a water park by the lake, and children tend to be impressed by the Parthenon. The difference is that its centrepiece, Lower Broadway, is built for adult drinking, so families have to plan around it rather than through it.

Both cities are built around the car, but they differ in how far you can get without one. Kansas City has the streetcar along Main Street, which links the River Market, downtown, Union Station, Crown Center and Midtown, so if you stay near the line you can manage a day or two without a car. Beyond it, the highways move quickly and parking is easy, which is why most visitors drive.

Nashville has no metro or tram, and buses are the only public transport much use to a visitor. What it has instead is a compact downtown, where Broadway, the Ryman, the Hall of Fame and the Gulch are a short walk apart and the pedestrian bridge crosses to the east bank. The Opry, the Hermitage and East Nashville each mean a drive or a ride, and the interstates clog at rush hour.

Kansas City's shopping centres on one handsome district, while Nashville's follows a theme. The Country Club Plaza is a 1920s Spanish-style district of tiled towers and courtyards with chain and upmarket stores. Galleries and vintage shops in the Crossroads and record shops around Westport add some character. Souvenirs run to barbecue sauce and sports gear.

Nashville sells its music identity instead: cowboy boots and hats on Lower Broadway, guitars both new and vintage, and letterpress concert posters from Hatch Show Print. For something quieter, there are independent boutiques in 12 South and East Nashville.

Kansas City is the cheaper of the two. Hotels, even downtown, cost noticeably less than in Nashville, parking is easy and the Nelson-Atkins is free to enter. A hired car and family tickets do add up, though.

Nashville's downtown hotels are expensive, and more so at weekends when groups fill the city. The music in the honky-tonks is free, which helps. Staying midweek or outside downtown and eating at hot chicken counters and meat-and-three cafeterias also brings costs down.

Kansas City has a musical identity of its own in jazz, with small clubs around 18th and Vine and in Midtown holding late jam sessions. It also has the Kauffman Center for symphony, opera and ballet, and summer musicals at Starlight. That is worth an evening or two.

Nashville, though, is built on live music. With the Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman's famous acoustics, bands on Broadway from late morning and songwriter nights in small rooms, there is far more to hear on any given night. The Schermerhorn adds a fine concert hall for the symphony.

Neither city has a spa tradition, and in both, wellness means hotel and day spas. What differs is the mood. Kansas City is calmer, with light traffic, quiet mornings in Loose Park or the Nelson-Atkins sculpture park, and the old mineral-water resort of Excelsior Springs about forty minutes away.

Nashville's downtown runs on noise, so for a restful stay there, base yourself in leafy Belmont or Hillsboro.