Portland or Seattle?

Neither city is a beach destination, but Seattle gives you more of one within the city. Alki Beach and Golden Gardens are real sandy strips on the Sound, with bonfires and sunset views of the Olympics. In high summer Lake Washington is warm enough for proper swimming from lifeguarded beaches.

Portland's swimming happens in its rivers, at small beaches along the downtown waterfront and in Sellwood, or on Sauvie Island half an hour north. Its ocean beaches at Cannon Beach are an hour and a half's drive away, and they are for walking, not swimming.

The two cities eat equally well but in different ways. Portland is about food carts serving cooking from Thai to Georgian, neighbourhood restaurants and an exceptional beer scene, with Willamette Valley pinot noir on the side.

Seattle cooks from the water: oysters, wild salmon and geoduck, with Pike Place Market as the place to graze. It also has deeper Asian cooking in the Chinatown-International District and the suburbs. Both take coffee seriously, and neither is a city for grand dining.

Seattle has more sightseeing. The Space Needle grounds hold the Chihuly glass garden and the Museum of Pop Culture, and the Museum of Flight is reason enough for a half day. Pioneer Square's brick blocks, rebuilt after the 1889 fire, add some history.

Portland's best sights are quieter ones: the walled Lan Su Chinese Garden, the Japanese Garden in Washington Park and the view to Mount Hood from Pittock Mansion. The art museum and historical society are solid but brief, and the city rewards wandering more than ticking off sights.

The two are close, but they go out differently. Seattle's night gathers on Capitol Hill, where Pike and Pine combine bars with real dance floors and the city's LGBTQ+ scene, and Belltown draws a younger club crowd.

Portland spreads its bars across neighbourhood strips such as Alberta, Division and Belmont, with taprooms, pinball dives and cocktail bars. You stay local, drink later towards 2.30am and do very little dancing.

Both are superb bases for the outdoors, with a difference in character. Portland has the bigger forest on its doorstep in Forest Park, waterfall hikes in the Columbia River Gorge within half an hour, windsurfing at Hood River, and skiing on Mount Hood's glacier even in summer.

Seattle's outdoors involves more water. You can kayak on Lake Union, take ferries where orcas and seals sometimes appear, and cross the Sound to the Olympic rainforest. Mount Rainier's meadows and glaciers are about two hours away, and Snoqualmie Pass is closer still for hiking and winter skiing.

The day trips are about equal, but you take them by different means. From Portland the classic outing is a drive under an hour to the Willamette Valley's pinot noir towns, with Victorian Astoria and the coast further on, and nearly all of it needs a car.

Seattle's best days out begin on a ferry: Bainbridge Island's harbour town takes half an hour, and Port Townsend's old seaport is further on. Woodinville's tasting rooms and Tacoma's Museum of Glass are close by road.

Seattle has more to keep children busy. Woodland Park Zoo, the aquarium, the Pacific Science Center and a children's museum are all on offer, and the Museum of Flight lets them climb into a shuttle trainer. Its steep downtown streets, though, are hard going with a pushchair.

Portland is a flatter, gentler place with a smaller set of draws. Children can climb through the submarine at the science museum, and the city has the zoo and Oaks Amusement Park by the river, which is a kind of fairground Seattle lacks.

Both cities have a light rail line from the airport, and in both, a car is needed for the mountains. Portland is flat along the river with short blocks and easy bridges, and it is one of the better cities in the country for cycling, though its east-side neighbourhoods are spread out and reached by bus.

Seattle is hillier and broken up by water, so distances are longer than they look. In return, one card covers trains, buses, the monorail, water taxis and ferries.

Shopping is on a similar level in both, and in each the neighbourhoods are more interesting than downtown. Portland has Powell's, a bookshop that fills a whole block, vintage and makers' shops on Mississippi, Alberta and Hawthorne, and no sales tax.

Seattle has proper department stores downtown, large outdoor gear shops, and a Sunday market in Fremont. For luxury there is more choice across the lake in Bellevue.

Portland is the cheaper of the two by a clear margin. Its hotels and meals cost much the same as in an ordinary large American city, and its food carts and free green spaces make saving easy.

Seattle is expensive, especially in summer when hotels fill. Its major attractions charge high admission, so cheaper meals at Pike Place counters and a room near the light rail make a real difference. In both cities, car hire for days out is the extra cost to plan for.

Seattle has the deeper stage. Pacific Northwest Ballet and Seattle Opera share McCaw Hall, the symphony plays at Benaroya Hall, and historic houses such as the Paramount host musicals. As the city of Jimi Hendrix and grunge, it has rock clubs in Belltown, Capitol Hill and Ballard on most nights.

Portland's main companies are fine for its size, with the symphony in a restored 1920s movie palace. Its real draw is indie and folk bands in small east-side rooms and the sprung floor of the Crystal Ballroom.

Neither city is somewhere to go for treatments, and both rely on an easy pace, garden walks and long coffee mornings. The difference is in where the bathing is. Portland's soaking houses sit within its own neighbourhoods, and the Cascade hot springs are about two hours away, while Seattle's Korean-style bathhouses are out in the suburbs.