Seattle or Vancouver?

Vancouver has the better beaches because they are part of everyday city life. English Bay sits beside the West End, and the long sand of Jericho, Locarno and Spanish Banks looks across to the mountains. In summer the sheltered bays get a few degrees warmer than Puget Sound, and the saltwater pool at Kitsilano gives an easier swim.

Seattle's Alki Beach and Golden Gardens are good for bonfires and sunsets over the Olympics, but the Sound stays too cold for more than a paddle. The swimming happens in Lake Washington's lifeguarded beaches instead, which is pleasant in high summer but takes you away from the waterfront.

Both cities build their menus on the same cold-water produce: oysters, Dungeness crab and wild salmon. Vancouver has the slight edge thanks to its Asian cooking. Cantonese dim sum in the city and Richmond is among the best outside Asia, and the cheap sushi counters and Taiwanese snacks make eating well easier on any budget.

Seattle answers with Pike Place Market, which is more absorbing than Granville Island's market, and with a coffee culture that runs through every neighbourhood. Its teriyaki shops and the Vietnamese and Korean cooking of the International District are good, but less deep than what Vancouver offers.

Neither is a heritage city, and both can be covered in two or three days, but Seattle has more to fill them. The Museum of Flight, the Seattle Art Museum with its Asian collection in Volunteer Park, the Burke Museum and the 1962 World's Fair grounds give it a wider spread, and Pioneer Square's post-1889 blocks add some history.

Vancouver's list is shorter but has one outstanding piece: the Museum of Anthropology, where the totem poles and canoes of the Northwest Coast are shown in a great glass hall. Beyond that there are Gastown's cobbles and the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Garden.

Seattle offers the better night out. Pike and Pine on Capitol Hill are busy most nights with cocktail bars, dives and dance floors, and Ballard, Belltown and Fremont each give a different scene. It still winds down at 2am, so the night is good rather than long.

Vancouver deserves its early-to-bed reputation. Its evenings are mostly wine bars in Gastown, brewery taprooms off Main Street and summer patios, with the clubbing confined to the Granville Street strip at weekends.

Both are superb bases for the outdoors, but Vancouver has the wild country closer. The North Shore mountains rise straight across the harbour, with trails and lit ski runs under half an hour from downtown. Stanley Park's cedar forest and the seawall are part of the city itself, and Squamish's granite and Whistler's alpine terrain are a couple of hours up the Sea-to-Sky Highway.

Seattle has bigger scenery further out. Mount Rainier's glaciers and the Olympic rainforest both reward a day trip, but the Cascades start an hour away and you need a car. In town, Discovery Park and kayaking on Lake Union are the everyday escapes.

Ferries make Seattle's best days out. A half-hour crossing takes you to Bainbridge Island's harbour town and wineries, and longer runs reach Whidbey Island's farm villages and Victorian Port Townsend. By road, Woodinville's tasting rooms and Tacoma's Museum of Glass are both close, so there are more different places to choose from.

Vancouver has fewer towns within reach. Victoria is the prize, but with the ferry and the drive to each terminal it takes a long day. Otherwise there are smaller outings such as Steveston's fishing harbour and the old fort at Fort Langley, and most days out head into the mountains instead.

Vancouver is the easier city with children, mostly because so much sits in one flat place. Stanley Park combines the aquarium, a miniature train, playgrounds and a water park along a seawall that suits scooters. The canyon suspension bridges and the Grouse gondola add some excitement.

Seattle has a strong list of its own. Woodland Park Zoo, the Pacific Science Center at Seattle Center and the aircraft at the Museum of Flight are all good, but the steep climb from the waterfront makes days with a pushchair harder.

Vancouver is simpler to get around. The downtown peninsula, Gastown, Chinatown and Yaletown sit close together, the driverless SkyTrain runs from the airport into the centre, and many visitors simply cycle the seawall. Even the North Shore is reachable on the SeaBus.

Seattle's centre is walkable, and one card covers light rail, buses, the monorail and ferries. But hills and lakes break the city into pieces, buses to Ballard or Alki are slow, and the mountains need a car.

There is little to choose between the two, and neither is a shopping destination, but they differ in what you bring home. Vancouver has the more polished centre, with Robson Street, the luxury houses on Alberni and an underground mall for wet days. Northwest Coast Indigenous prints and carvings are its most distinctive buys.

Seattle is more down to earth. It has big outdoor-gear stores, crafts at Pike Place, and record and vintage shops on Capitol Hill. Serious luxury shopping means crossing the lake to Bellevue.

Both are expensive, and in practice the gap is small. Summer hotel rooms are costly in both cities, and tax and tipping add to every restaurant bill. Seattle's main attractions charge more to get in, and its cheap meals mostly come from teriyaki shops and the counters at Pike Place.

Vancouver saves you more on food, because its noodle shops, dim sum and sushi are good and inexpensive. Its biggest draws, Stanley Park, the seawall and the beaches, cost nothing. In both cities, staying near the train line or travelling outside summer cuts the bill.

Seattle has much the deeper stage. Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet share McCaw Hall, the symphony plays a full season at Benaroya Hall, and the 5th Avenue and Paramount stage musicals. The city of Hendrix and grunge still has bands playing in Belltown, Capitol Hill and Ballard most nights.

Vancouver's companies are solid but local. The main reason to time a visit for the arts is the summer festival season, with Shakespeare in tents at Bard on the Beach and the folk festival on Jericho Beach.

Seattle's calm comes from its routines rather than its spas: long mornings in neighbourhood coffee houses and slow walks through the Japanese Garden and the Arboretum. For treatments there are hotel spas and a few Korean-style bathhouses in the suburbs, and the hot springs in the Cascades are a long drive away.

Vancouver offers a little more for a restful stay. It feels green and orderly, it has a long tradition of yoga studios, and Chinatown and Richmond have plenty of massage and reflexology places. Neither city has a bathing culture of its own, though, and Vancouver's large Nordic-style outdoor spas are out near Whistler.