San Jose or Seattle?

Neither city is a beach destination, and in both the sea is for paddling rather than swimming. The difference is where the sand is. San Jose's beaches are over the Santa Cruz Mountains at Santa Cruz and Capitola. They make a sunny surf-town day out, but the drive gets clogged on summer weekends.

Seattle's shoreline is inside the city, with Alki and Golden Gardens for sunsets over the Olympics. What sets it apart is fresh water: in high summer the lifeguarded beaches on Lake Washington are warm enough for a real swim, which the Pacific off Santa Cruz never is.

Seattle eats better, mainly because its best food is easier to find and tied to the place. Oysters, Dungeness crab and salmon from the surrounding waters, with Pike Place Market as a walkable starting point, give a trip a clear culinary thread. Serious coffee roasters and Washington wines add to it.

San Jose's strength is narrower but real. It has some of the best Vietnamese cooking in the country, along with taquerias and Indian and Korean kitchens, but they are spread through suburban plazas you need a car to reach. Dining downtown is generic by comparison, so the best meals go to visitors willing to drive.

Seattle has more to see, though San Jose has the stranger sights. San Jose's best are curiosities: the Winchester Mystery House with its staircases to nowhere, the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in its temple-style building, and Mission Santa Clara, with the Computer History Museum over in Mountain View. Between them lies postwar sprawl, and a couple of days covers the lot.

Seattle fills two or three days more comfortably. Seattle Center groups the Space Needle from the 1962 World's Fair with the Chihuly glass and the Museum of Pop Culture. The Burke Museum's Northwest Coast Indigenous art, the Museum of Flight and the brick blocks of Pioneer Square, rebuilt after the fire of 1889, add range and a little history.

Seattle has the better night out. Capitol Hill's Pike and Pine strip, with cocktail bars, dance floors and the heart of the city's LGBTQ+ scene, is busy most nights. Ballard's brewery taprooms offer a looser alternative, even if the night is not a long one.

In San Jose, going out is confined to San Pedro Square and SoFA on South First Street. Both are lively around arena events and at weekends but quiet midweek. Locals who want a big night head to San Francisco, which says a good deal.

Both cities have serious landscape within reach, but Seattle's is bigger and more dramatic. It has Mount Rainier with its glaciers and meadows, the Cascades under an hour east with winter skiing, and the rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula, a range San Jose cannot match. Kayaking on Lake Union or a ferry ride with seals in view brings some of it into the city itself.

San Jose's outdoors are gentler: redwood groves at Big Basin and Henry Cowell, foothill hikes at Alum Rock, and sea otters and the cypress headlands of Point Lobos on the Monterey Bay. Its advantage is the weather, because its dry months are long and Seattle's are short.

San Jose is clearly ahead here. San Francisco is an easy day out by Caltrain, and Stanford and Palo Alto are closer still. Monterey, Carmel and the Santa Cruz boardwalk lie to the south, and Napa and Sonoma are possible on a long day.

Seattle's best outings are by ferry, to Bainbridge Island, Whidbey or Port Townsend, with Tacoma's museums and the Woodinville tasting rooms closer by. These are pleasant, but the bigger names in the region, Vancouver, Victoria and Leavenworth, are really overnight trips.

Both work well with children, in different ways. San Jose has Great America, Happy Hollow for little ones and the Monterey Bay Aquarium within driving range, with dry weather for outdoor days, though nearly every outing means time in the car.

Seattle keeps its family attractions closer together. Seattle Center has the science centre and a children's museum, and there are Woodland Park Zoo, the waterfront aquarium and the Museum of Flight, with the monorail and ferries as treats in themselves. It has no theme park, though, and its steep streets and wet months take some planning.

Seattle is far easier without a car. Link light rail runs from the airport through downtown to Capitol Hill, and one card covers buses, the monorail and the water taxis. The core from Pike Place to Pioneer Square is walkable, hills aside.

San Jose has a walkable downtown and Caltrain to San Francisco. But the Winchester house, the malls, the foothill parks and the coast are spread across the valley and the buses are slow. Most visitors end up hiring a car and timing their drives around rush hour.

The real choice here is malls against neighbourhoods. San Jose does malls well. On the west side, a very large regional mall and the open-air boutique street beside it bring the international and luxury brands together, with easy parking. Independent shops are limited to Japantown and the main streets of Willow Glen and Los Gatos.

Seattle is better for browsing on foot. It has record shops and vintage clothing on Capitol Hill, Fremont's Sunday market, design shops in Ballard, makers' stalls at Pike Place and big outdoor-gear stores. Luxury labels are thinner on the ground and mostly across the lake in Bellevue.

Both are expensive, and the bills differ more in shape than in size. In San Jose, hotels priced for business travellers drop at weekends, but car hire, fuel and parking add up because you can hardly do without them.

Seattle's hotels are dearest in summer and cruise season, and its main attractions charge high admissions, but public transport saves you the cost of a car. In both cities the cheap eating is Asian: Vietnamese plazas in San Jose, and teriyaki shops and the Pike Place counters in Seattle.

Seattle is in another league. Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet share McCaw Hall, the symphony plays a full season at Benaroya Hall, and the 5th Avenue and the Paramount stage musicals. Above all, the city of Hendrix and grunge has bands playing most nights in clubs in Belltown, Capitol Hill and Ballard.

San Jose has Opera San José in the restored California Theatre, its own symphony, touring Broadway shows and a long-established summer jazz festival. On an ordinary weeknight there is little on, and serious theatregoers drive to San Francisco.

Neither city is a place to come for rest and treatment, and the options overlap: hotel spas and Korean-style bathhouses with saunas and soaking pools out in the suburbs. San Jose's calm comes in pockets. You get an hour in the Japanese gardens at Hakone or Kelley Park, or a stroll through the quiet streets of Los Gatos and Saratoga, in a valley otherwise geared to commuting and the working week.

Seattle has the edge because slowing down is part of the city's own pace, not something you drive out to find. An idle day can drift from a neighbourhood coffee house to the Japanese Garden and the Arboretum without feeling wasted, and the grey months make staying in seem natural. The hot springs in the Cascades and on the Olympic Peninsula fit into a longer mountain trip, but they are too far for an afternoon's soak.