Shenzhen or Singapore?

Neither city is somewhere to swim every day, but Shenzhen has the better beaches if you are willing to travel for them. Xichong, at the tip of the Dapeng peninsula, faces open sea with green hills behind, and Jiaochangwei adds a village of guesthouses and seafood. Both are an hour or more from the centre, and the nearer sands at Dameisha get packed on summer weekends.

Singapore's sea is warmer for longer, but its Sentosa beaches are made from imported sand, sit behind breakwaters and look out on lines of anchored tankers. The sheltered lagoons of St John's and Lazarus are quieter, and most visitors end up in the hotel pool.

Singapore is the better city for food, and many people visit mainly to eat. Its hawker centres, from Maxwell to Old Airport Road, serve chicken rice, laksa and chilli crab, dishes that bring together its Chinese, Malay, Indian and Peranakan roots. You can eat well at almost any hour.

Shenzhen eats well in a different way. It is a city of migrants, so you get Chaoshan beef hotpot, Hakka salt-baked chicken and fiery Hunan cooking, often made by people from those regions, and seafood picked from tanks at Nan'ao and Shekou. It has no cuisine of its own, though, the best meals are in malls and office districts, and menus behind QR codes call for a translation app.

Singapore has much more to see. The colonial Civic District holds the National Gallery's Southeast Asian collection and three more major museums within walking distance, and the temples and shophouses of Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam sit close by. Add the Botanic Gardens and Gardens by the Bay, and two or three days are well filled.

Shenzhen's sights are mostly about its rapid modern growth: the Ping An tower, the Civic Centre roof, the galleries of OCT Loft and the painting workshops of Dafen. Nantou's Ming-era lanes, Dapeng Fortress and the Hakka walled villages show older layers but are far apart, and anyone after deep history goes to Guangzhou.

The two cities offer about as much after dark, but of different kinds. Shenzhen leans towards big clubs with bottle service around Coco Park, late nights of karaoke in private KTV rooms and relaxed pubs in Shekou, though the venues are spread out and often inside malls.

Singapore's strength is the cocktail bar, in the shophouses of Keong Saik and Telok Ayer or on rooftops above Marina Bay. It is the better city for a carefully made drink with a view, but alcohol taxes push up the bill and few places keep going until dawn.

Shenzhen has more room to get outdoors. Wutong Mountain is a proper climb with views towards Hong Kong, and the Dapeng peninsula offers a coastal trail between headlands and coves, with kayaking and paddleboarding nearby. Closer in, the Shenzhen Bay path passes mangroves where waders feed in winter.

Singapore's green spaces are real rainforest, with macaques along the MacRitchie trails and Bukit Timah, and Pulau Ubin is a lovely island for cycling. The island is small and flat, though, and in the constant heat a day outdoors means an early start and a short list of places.

This is where the two differ most. From Shenzhen, fast trains reach Hong Kong's West Kowloon in under half an hour and Guangzhou's temples and Shamian Island in about the same time, and Macau's Portuguese old town is a ferry ride away. That makes it an excellent base for the Pearl River Delta, as long as your visa allows you back into the mainland.

Singapore has little nearby. Johor Bahru is just across the causeway but the border queues can take hours, Bintan and Batam are mostly for resort stays, and Malacca really needs a night. Most visitors fly onwards instead.

Both cities are safe and clean with children, but Singapore makes it easier. The Mandai wildlife parks, including the Night Safari, and Universal Studios and the aquarium on Sentosa are all easy to reach, everything is in English and air-conditioned, and children find familiar food at any hawker centre.

Shenzhen has plenty for children too, with Happy Valley's roller coasters and Window of the World in OCT, a safari park and the marine park at Xiaomeisha. The attractions are much further apart, though, and outside the main parks there is little English to help.

Both have excellent metros, but Singapore's is easier to use. Its MRT reaches almost everywhere a visitor goes, you tap in with an ordinary contactless bank card, and the short distances mean that the heat, rather than the journey, is the main thing to plan around.

Shenzhen's metro is clean and bilingual, but the city stretches about 80km from end to end, so a trip from Shekou to the Dapeng beaches takes much of a morning. Wide multilane roads separate the districts, and most payments run through mobile apps that are worth setting up before you arrive.

Singapore is better for most shoppers. Orchard Road and the shops under Marina Bay Sands have every luxury and high-street brand, and Haji Lane and Tiong Bahru's Art Deco blocks add independent boutiques and design stores. Peranakan beadwork and porcelain make distinctive things to take home.

Shenzhen's appeal is different. Huaqiangbei's towers of electronics stalls are fascinating to wander even if you buy nothing, Luohu Commercial City is full of tailors and fabric, and Dafen sells hand-painted canvases. Luxury fashion is limited to a few mall floors.

Shenzhen is much cheaper. Comfortable modern hotels cost a fraction of what they do in Singapore, and everyday meals and transport cost very little. The bills mainly go up at the theme parks and in the foreign bars of Shekou and Coco Park.

In Singapore the room is the biggest cost, and the taxed drinks and the entry fees at Mandai and Sentosa add up quickly. Hawker meals, the MRT and the free gardens keep the rest of the day reasonable.

Singapore is the better choice for an evening of performance. The Esplanade's concert hall and theatre run a full programme with free outdoor shows by the bay, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra plays a regular season, and Chinese opera and Indian dance appear at temple festivals.

Shenzhen has a good concert hall for its orchestra, plus the Poly Theatre and the Grand Theatre for touring productions, but most theatre is in Mandarin. Its distinctive offering is the Chinese indie and rock bands that play the live houses around OCT Loft.

Shenzhen is far stronger for relaxation. Its huge bathhouse complexes run through the night, with hot and cold pools, saunas, sleeping halls and floors of massage rooms, and people cross from Hong Kong just to visit them. Late-opening foot-massage parlours are everywhere, and hot-spring resorts sit in the hills towards Huizhou.

Singapore has no bathing tradition, so it comes down to polished hotel spas, reflexology in Chinatown and Ayurvedic treatments in Little India. Its calmest moments are early mornings in the Botanic Gardens.