Louisville or Memphis?

Neither city is anywhere near the sea, and neither river is fit for swimming: the Ohio and the Mississippi are both working rivers full of barges and strong currents. The difference lies in how you cool off. Louisville has the water park at Kentucky Kingdom and reservoir lakes in the Kentucky hills, while Memphis relies on splash pads, hotel pools and the paddling lakes of Shelby Farms.

The two eat about equally well, but around different centrepieces. Louisville's table is built around bourbon: Whiskey Row bars, tasting rooms downtown, and local dishes like the hot brown, burgoo and Derby pie, with the better kitchens in NuLu and the Highlands.

Memphis is built around pork barbecue: dry-rubbed ribs, pulled shoulder, and oddities such as barbecue spaghetti, plus soul food and Delta tamales. Come to Louisville to drink well and to Memphis to eat heavily. In both, the choice thins quickly beyond the regional cooking.

Memphis has the heavier sights. Graceland and Sun Studio tell the story of rock and roll from its source, Stax covers soul, and the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel is among the most moving museums in the country. Its historic centre, though, is patchy.

Louisville's draws are more specialised: Churchill Downs and the Derby Museum, the Muhammad Ali Center and the Slugger bat factory. Where it has the edge is the townscape. The Victorian mansions of Old Louisville and the cast-iron fronts of Whiskey Row make better walking than anything in central Memphis.

Memphis has the livelier night out, mostly thanks to Beale Street, where drinks are carried from bar to bar, bands play and the crowd stays out late. Midtown's Overton Square and Cooper-Young are the quieter local option.

Louisville is a bar town. Its nights run along the dive bars and patios of Bardstown Road and the bourbon bars of NuLu, some of them licensed to stay open very late, but there is no single street with Beale's party feel outside Derby season. Neither city has much of a club scene.

Louisville has more varied country around it. Olmsted's Cherokee and Iroquois parks have wooded hills and views, you can walk out on fossil beds at the Falls of the Ohio, and Bernheim Forest and Mammoth Cave are within a short drive for proper hiking and caving.

Memphis sits on flat floodplain with no hills at all. Its best outdoor moments are walking or cycling into Arkansas on the Big River Crossing, and Shelby Farms Park, with its bison herd and long trails.

Louisville has the richer range of outings. The distilleries around Bardstown, Frankfort and Lawrenceburg are the obvious pull, and Lexington's thoroughbred farms, Shaker Village and Lincoln's birthplace mean several quite different days out.

From Memphis the roads lead into the Delta: Clarksdale's juke joints and the Blues Trail markers, Faulkner's house in Oxford, Tupelo and the battlefield at Shiloh. That is a strong list for music and history pilgrims, but narrower, and the towns are small. Both need a car, and in Louisville a designated driver too.

Louisville is far easier with children. Kentucky Kingdom, the hands-on floors of the Kentucky Science Center, tram tours and ziplines in the Mega Cavern, and the splash areas of Waterfront Park make a full week.

Memphis has a fine zoo, the Pink Palace planetarium and the daily march of the ducks at the Peabody. Beyond those, its great music and civil rights museums mean more to teenagers than to small children, and its summers are even stickier.

Both are car cities with buses that are of little use to a visitor, so plan on driving or ride-hailing either way. Memphis does have heritage trolleys along Main Street, but Graceland in Whitehaven and Shelby Farms are long drives from the centre. In Louisville the distances are shorter and traffic is mild, though Churchill Downs, the Highlands and the big parks are all beyond walking range of downtown.

Neither is a shopping destination, and what sets them apart is the souvenir. Louisville sends people home with rare bourbon bottles, Derby hats and racing memorabilia, and has design shops in NuLu and vintage and antiques along Bardstown Road. In Memphis you shop for vintage vinyl and Elvis and blues mementoes, with small boutiques in Cooper-Young and on Broad Avenue. In both, mainstream shopping means a suburban mall.

Memphis is the cheaper stay. Hotels are reasonable outside busy downtown weekends, and a barbecue lunch or soul-food plate costs little, though Graceland's admission takes a noticeable bite.

Louisville's hotels are good value outside racing season, but meals and bar bills, with tax and tip on top, push daily spending higher. In both cities a hire car or ride-hailing is a steady extra cost. Both get much dearer in spring, Louisville at Derby time and Memphis during its May festivals.

Memphis is the music city. Blues, soul and Southern rock bands play Beale Street clubs from the afternoon on, every night of the year, and the Levitt Shell in Overton Park holds free outdoor concerts in the warm months.

Louisville's strength is the formal stage. Its orchestra, opera and ballet share the Kentucky Center, and Actors Theatre has long staged new American plays. The bluegrass and Americana in its bars are good, but nobody travels for them the way they travel to Memphis.

Louisville has the better escape for a proper spa break. The grand old mineral-spring resorts of French Lick and West Baden Springs are about an hour and a half away in southern Indiana. In the city itself, a hotel spa or day spa is about all there is, and the same goes for Memphis.

Memphis has no resort within similar reach. There the calm comes from an early walk among the old-growth trees of Overton Park, or an evening on the bluffs watching the river.