Louisville or Philadelphia?

Neither city has a beach of its own, but Philadelphia at least has the Atlantic within reach. Atlantic City, Ocean City and Wildwood are a little over an hour's drive away, with wide sand and proper swimming from late June into early September, though summer weekends bring heavy traffic.

Louisville is hundreds of kilometres from any coast, and the Ohio is a working river where nobody swims. Summer bathing there means pools or the reservoir lakes in the Kentucky countryside. If sand matters at all, only Philadelphia can offer it.

Both cities eat with a strong regional accent, but the accents differ. Louisville's table centres on bourbon and Southern cooking: the hot brown, burgoo and Derby pie, farm-to-table kitchens in NuLu, the Highlands and Butchertown, and an old fashioned never far away.

Philadelphia's strength is everyday street food and a wider range. Cheesesteaks, roast pork sandwiches and hoagies come from corner delis, and Reading Terminal and the Italian Market are worth a visit for their own sake. The bring-your-own-wine dining rooms of East Passyunk and Fishtown add Mexican and Vietnamese cooking that Louisville's narrower scene lacks. Go to Louisville to drink, and to Philadelphia to graze.

Philadelphia has far more to see. Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, the Georgian streets of Society Hill, and major museums such as the Barnes Foundation, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Penn Museum are enough for a long stay. Eastern State Penitentiary and the Mütter Museum add something stranger.

Louisville's sights are fewer and more specialised: Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby Museum, the Muhammad Ali Center, the Slugger museum on Main Street and the Victorian mansions of Old Louisville. They are distinctive, but two or three days covers them.

Neither is a clubbing city, and a night out in either runs through neighbourhood bars, but Philadelphia has more of them and more variety. Fishtown's warehouse bars and beer halls, the cocktail crowd around Rittenhouse Square, the Gayborhood and a large student population keep weekends busy across several districts.

In Louisville, evenings centre on the dive bars and patios of Bardstown Road and the bourbon bars of NuLu, with Fourth Street Live for groups. Some bars there pour later than Philadelphia's 2am last call, and Derby week brings the whole city out, but on an ordinary weekend there is less to choose from.

Both are green rather than dramatic, and both rely on large city parks. Louisville has Olmsted's Cherokee and Iroquois parks and the fossil beds at the Falls of the Ohio, with Jefferson Memorial Forest and Bernheim for proper woodland hiking. Mammoth Cave, about an hour and a half away, is the standout outing.

Philadelphia's equivalent is the Wissahickon gorge inside Fairmount Park and the Schuylkill River Trail towards Valley Forge, both easy to reach on foot or by bike from Center City. The Pine Barrens and the Poconos lie further out.

Philadelphia's place on the rail corridor gives it the edge. New York, Baltimore and Washington are each a full day out by train, and Lancaster's Amish country can be reached without a car too. Gettysburg, Longwood Gardens and Princeton widen the choice further.

Louisville's outings are narrower but very much its own: the distilleries around Bardstown and Lawrenceburg, the thoroughbred farms and Keeneland near Lexington, and Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. Nearly all of them need a car, and tastings need a designated driver or a tour.

Philadelphia gives children more to do, and the places are easier to get between. The Franklin Institute's giant heart, the Please Touch Museum for under-eights, the dinosaur hall and the country's oldest zoo are all close at hand, and the costumed guides of Old City make history easy for older children to grasp.

Louisville is relaxed with children, with a well-regarded zoo, the Kentucky Science Center, the rides and water park at Kentucky Kingdom, and the underground tram tours of the Mega Cavern. The catch is distance: these places are spread out, so driving becomes part of every day.

This is where the two cities differ most in day-to-day travel. Philadelphia's Center City is a flat, compact grid where Old City, Rittenhouse Square and the Parkway museums are all within walking distance. Subway, trolley and regional rail lines, including a train from the airport, cover the rest, if plainly.

Louisville has no rail transit and few useful buses. Beyond Main Street, the waterfront and NuLu, visitors drive or use ride-hailing. Traffic is light and distances are short, so driving is easy, but it is a car-based trip.

Philadelphia offers much more choice. It has Walnut Street around Rittenhouse Square for brands and boutiques, independent shops in Old City and Fishtown, and Jewelers' Row, with the vast King of Prussia mall half an hour away. Pennsylvania charges no sales tax on clothing, which also helps.

Shopping in Louisville is small and local, mostly vintage clothing and records on Bardstown Road and design shops in NuLu. Its real souvenir is bourbon, with distillery shops selling bottles that are hard to find elsewhere.

Both cost what American cities usually cost, with tax and tip added to every meal, and neither is cheap. The difference is where the money goes. In Louisville, hotels outside Derby week are good value, but a hire car or ride-hailing adds to the cost of every day. In Derby week itself, rooms sell at several times their usual rate.

In Philadelphia, rooms cost more, but walking replaces the car. The sights of Independence Park are free, and cheesesteak lunches and bring-your-own-wine dinners keep food spending down.

Philadelphia is by far the stronger city for the stage. The Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera Philadelphia at the 1857 Academy of Music, recitals by Curtis Institute students and the Walnut Street Theatre, the oldest working theatre in the country, are worth planning a trip around. Jazz and indie clubs in Fishtown and University City cover the rest.

Louisville has a full set of companies at the Kentucky Center, and Actors Theatre has a long record of premiering American plays. Bars on Bardstown Road host bluegrass and Americana, and the Iroquois Amphitheater puts on summer shows. It makes a good evening out rather than a reason to go.

Neither city has a bathing tradition, and in both a spa means a hotel or day spa. Philadelphia's pace is quicker, but it has Korean-style bathhouses in the suburbs and quiet walks in the Wissahickon gorge. Louisville is calmer day to day, and the grand mineral-spring resorts of French Lick and West Baden Springs are about an hour and a half's drive away.