Memphis or New Orleans?

Neither city is a place to swim. Memphis is the more landlocked of the two: the Mississippi is off limits, and a cool dip means a pool, a splash pad or a lake out in the countryside.

New Orleans at least has the Gulf Coast around Bay St. Louis, a drive of well over an hour, where the water is warm but shallow and brownish. It is an occasional day out rather than a beach vacation.

Both cities feed you heavily and locally, but New Orleans has the richer and more varied table. Its Creole and Cajun cooking runs from century-old French Quarter dining rooms to po'boy shops in Mid-City. It also has seasonal rituals such as spring crawfish boils and winter oysters, a cocktail tradition that gave the world the Sazerac, and Vietnamese cooking in the eastern suburbs.

Memphis is narrower, but it is not lesser for what it does well. Its pork barbecue, whether as dry-rubbed ribs, pulled shoulder or the odd local barbecue spaghetti, is reason enough to visit. Fried catfish, Delta tamales and soul food fill out the rest, with a small modern layer in Cooper-Young.

The two are close in depth but differ in kind. In Memphis, the sightseeing is a handful of powerful museums: the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, Graceland, Sun Studio and Stax. Between them lies a patchy centre that does not reward much wandering.

New Orleans works the other way round. The French Quarter is one of the most complete colonial townscapes in the country, with Jackson Square, the Cabildo, iron balconies and courtyards, and the Garden District mansions and above-ground tombs add to it. Beyond the National WWII Museum and the art museum in City Park, its list of major collections is short.

Both cities let you carry a drink along the street, but the comparison ends there. In Memphis that freedom covers a few blocks of Beale Street at weekends, which are loud, touristy and fun. The quieter alternative is the bars of Overton Square and Cooper-Young, and downtown empties early, so moving between areas means a ride-hail.

New Orleans has no legal closing time, and its nights run across whole neighbourhoods: Bourbon Street for the neon crowd, Frenchmen Street for music, and old corner bars in the Bywater and Mid-City. You can drift between them on foot until dawn, and Carnival season stretches the party for weeks.

Both cities sit in flat, hot river country and give you about as much outdoors as each other, but of different kinds. Memphis offers open space for walking and cycling: the Big River Crossing over the Mississippi into Arkansas, the lakes, bison and long trails of Shelby Farms Park, and a stand of old-growth forest in Overton Park.

New Orleans has wilder scenery close by. Cypress swamps and bayous lie within an hour, where boats and kayaks pass alligators and herons, and the boardwalks of the Barataria Preserve are easy to reach. In the city itself, City Park's ancient live oaks and lagoons make a pleasant afternoon.

The day trips from each city are as good as each other, and both need a car, but they follow different threads. From Memphis, Highway 61 leads south into blues country: Clarksdale's juke joints, the markers of the Mississippi Blues Trail and Faulkner's Oxford. Elvis's birthplace at Tupelo and the battlefield at Shiloh are further out.

From New Orleans, the River Road leads to the sugar plantations, where the Whitney gives the most honest account of slavery. Other easy outings include the Gulf towns of Bay St. Louis and Ocean Springs and the Cajun prairie around Lafayette.

New Orleans gives children more to do and makes it easier to get there. Audubon Zoo, the riverside aquarium and City Park's carousel, storybook garden and children's museum are all within reach. Streetcar rides, paddle steamers and daytime Mardi Gras parades on St. Charles Avenue turn getting about into part of the fun. Parents do need to keep away from Bourbon Street after dark.

Memphis has a fine zoo in Overton Park, the planetarium at the Pink Palace and the bison at Shelby Farms. The daily duck march through a historic downtown hotel lobby is a small delight. Beyond that, every outing is a drive, and the big music and civil rights museums suit teenagers better than small children.

In Memphis, walking only works downtown, between Beale Street, the riverfront and South Main, with heritage trolleys along Main Street. Graceland, Midtown and Shelby Farms are spread far apart, and buses are of little use to a visitor, so most people hire a car or rely on ride-hailing.

New Orleans is far easier without a car. The French Quarter, Marigny and Warehouse District sit in a compact, flat band you can walk. The green St. Charles streetcars roll slowly through the Garden District and Uptown, and other lines run along Canal Street to the riverfront and City Park.

New Orleans offers proper shopping streets. Royal Street has antique dealers and galleries, and Magazine Street runs for miles of independent boutiques, vintage shops and design stores. The French Market adds hot sauces, pralines and Carnival masks that you will not find elsewhere.

Memphis is mostly about vinyl in independent record shops and Elvis memorabilia. Small boutiques and local art cluster in Cooper-Young and along Broad Avenue, and anything mainstream means driving to the suburban malls.

Memphis is the cheaper of the two, mainly because of where you sleep. Hotels outside the busiest weekends are reasonably priced, and barbecue and soul food fill you up for little. The car or ride-hails you will need, and full admission at Graceland, take back part of the saving.

In New Orleans, rooms in and near the Quarter cost what they would in a big city, with high taxes on top. The free pleasures, street music and walking the Quarter, plus cheap streetcars and po'boys, soften the bill. Both cities get much more expensive during their big spring festivals.

Both are music cities first, but New Orleans has the broader and more deeply rooted scene. Jazz, brass bands, funk, Cajun and zydeco play nightly on Frenchmen Street, in the old jazz hall in the Quarter and in neighbourhood bars. Sunday second-line parades, the Mardi Gras Indians and Jazz Fest take the music onto the streets.

Memphis has a narrower sound but a famous one. Blues and soul house bands play Beale Street from the afternoon, and free summer concerts take place at the Levitt Shell, where Elvis played an early show. Its symphony, opera and respected ballet give it at least as much formal arts as New Orleans.

Neither city has a spa tradition, and both limit pampering to day spas. New Orleans is a little easier to slow down in. Mornings in a quiet courtyard guesthouse, a slow streetcar ride under the oaks of St. Charles Avenue and lazy afternoons in City Park all help.

Memphis offers less of that. Its calmest moments are an early walk in Overton Park or an evening on the bluffs watching the river, while most spas are out in the eastern suburbs.