San Francisco or New York?

New York's beaches are real swimming beaches, which surprises many visitors. The subway runs to Coney Island and Brighton Beach, the Rockaways draw a surfing crowd, and in high summer the Atlantic is warm enough for a proper swim.

San Francisco's shore is beautiful but the water is too cold. Ocean Beach and Baker Beach are for walks with the Golden Gate in view, bonfires and sunsets, and rip currents make the open ocean dangerous. Neither city is a beach vacation, but only New York gives you a summer swim.

Both cities eat very well, but New York has the wider range. Its strength is sheer variety: Fujianese in Flushing, Tibetan in Jackson Heights, Polish in Greenpoint, Italian on Arthur Avenue, plus cheap classics like pizza slices, bagels and pastrami, and a fine-dining scene as deep as any.

San Francisco is more about ingredients than variety. Farm produce, Dungeness crab, sourdough and the Mission burrito are its signatures, the Ferry Building market is the place to taste them, and Napa and Sonoma wines are on every list.

New York could fill weeks with museums alone. The Met, MoMA, the Guggenheim, the Frick and the Cloisters sit alongside landmarks known the world over, from the Statue of Liberty to Grand Central, and whole neighbourhoods of brownstones and cast-iron fronts.

San Francisco has fewer layers, partly because the 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed so much of the older city. The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, the cable cars and SFMOMA are first rate, but most visitors see the essentials in three or four days.

New York really does go all night. Bars stay open into the small hours, trains run all night, and North Brooklyn's warehouse and loft parties last until after sunrise at weekends. Rooftop bars, speakeasies and West Village wine bars fill in every other mood.

San Francisco is good for a night out but on a smaller scale. The Mission's cocktail and mezcal bars, the old North Beach saloons and the bars of the Castro are worth seeking out, but last orders come at 2am and the nightlife is spread across districts that are quiet on weeknights.

San Francisco wins easily. The Lands End trail runs along cliffs above the surf, the Marin Headlands are half an hour away across the bridge, Muir Woods has old-growth redwoods, and Point Reyes has elk and elephant seals. Cycling over the Golden Gate is a classic.

New York's green spaces are mostly designed: Central Park, Prospect Park and the High Line. For real hiking you take a train up the Hudson to Breakneck Ridge, a trip of about ninety minutes, and October colour is the high point of the year.

New York's days out lead to history and other cities. Philadelphia, with Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, is about an hour and a half away by train, and the Princeton and Yale campuses are within reach. Up the Hudson Valley are Gilded Age estates, Dia Beacon and the Storm King sculpture park.

San Francisco's lead to wine and the coast instead. Napa and Sonoma are about an hour north, ferries run to Sausalito and Tiburon, and Monterey and Carmel make a longer day to the south. What it lacks is old towns and heritage sites.

Both work well for children, with different highlights. New York has the dinosaur halls at the Natural History museum, the Bronx Zoo, the aircraft carrier on the Hudson and the free Staten Island Ferry. San Francisco has the Exploratorium, the aquarium and rainforest at the California Academy of Sciences, and the sea lions at Fisherman's Wharf.

Each has its own hassles. In New York it is subway stairs, small hotel rooms and the Midtown crowds. In San Francisco it is steep hills with a pushchair, a sea too cold for paddling and no big theme park nearby.

New York is easier to get around. Manhattan's grid is hard to get lost in, many sights are within walking distance of each other, and the subway runs around the clock across four boroughs. The airports are the awkward part.

San Francisco is compact and you don't need a car, and BART runs right to the airport. But the hills turn short walks into hard climbs and the buses can be slow. The cable cars are as much a ride as a way of getting somewhere.

New York is one of the great shopping cities, at every level. There are Fifth Avenue flagships, quiet luxury on Madison Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman and Macy's, SoHo design brands, and records and young designers in Williamsburg and Greenpoint.

San Francisco is pleasant for browsing, with Union Square department stores, Hayes Valley boutiques and vintage on Haight-Ashbury and Valencia Street. Few people would plan a trip around it.

Both are among the most expensive cities in the United States, and neither is cheap. New York gives you more ways to save: you can sleep in Brooklyn, Queens or New Jersey and ride a flat-fare subway in, and the Staten Island Ferry, the parks and the bridges cost nothing.

In San Francisco, hotel prices climb further during big conferences. The free things here are outdoors: walking the bridge and the coastal trails, with Mission taquerias and Richmond dim sum for cheaper meals.

New York has more performance than anywhere else. Broadway stages the big premieres, Lincoln Center is home to the Metropolitan Opera, the Philharmonic and City Ballet, Carnegie Hall hosts the world's leading orchestras, and the jazz basements of Greenwich Village and Harlem have a century behind them.

San Francisco's scene is still strong: the Opera, the country's oldest professional ballet company, SFJAZZ and the Fillmore rock hall. Its Broadway is touring productions of shows that started in New York.

Neither city is restful, but each has its own way to unwind. New York's runs deeper than you might expect: a Russian and Turkish bathhouse in the East Village dating from the late 1800s, Russian banyas in Brighton Beach and big Korean spas in Queens.

San Francisco has the Japantown bathhouse in town and the mud baths and mineral pools of Calistoga about two hours away. For quiet, the Japanese Tea Garden is its answer to New York's Cloisters gardens.