Asheville or Daytona Beach?

On beaches the two are far apart. Asheville's swimming is cold mountain water: the rock slide at Sliding Rock, pools under the Pisgah waterfalls, floats on the French Broad and a small sandy beach at Lake Lure. Each makes a refreshing summer half-day, but none of it adds up to beach life.

Daytona Beach is built around its shore, 37km of flat, hard-packed sand where cars can drive on marked stretches and the sea is warm through the summer months. Waves and rip currents mean swimming near the lifeguards. For quieter sand, head north to Ormond Beach or south towards Ponce Inlet and New Smyrna Beach.

Asheville is clearly the better place to eat and drink. Dozens of breweries line downtown and the South Slope, and chef-driven kitchens cook from Appalachian farms with trout, heirloom beans, foraged ramps and serious barbecue. Its weakness is a thin international range.

Daytona's best meals are fried shrimp, smoked fish dip and oysters, eaten on a deck over the Halifax River at an old fish camp. Away from the water, chain restaurants dominate the main roads. In Daytona you eat between beach days, whereas in Asheville the meals are a reason to go.

Asheville has more to see. The Biltmore Estate, the Vanderbilts' Gilded Age château with Olmsted gardens, fills a whole day. Downtown has one of the South's best-preserved groups of Art Deco buildings, including the domed City Hall and the tiled Basilica of St Lawrence, and the Folk Art Center adds the region's craft heritage.

Daytona's culture centres on speed. The main sights are a tour of the Speedway, the Cuban art and planetarium at the Museum of Arts and Sciences, and the climb up the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse. A day or two covers it all.

Neither town is for a long night of dancing, and the difference is in the kind of night out. Asheville offers taprooms, cocktail bars and dive bars within walking distance downtown and along Haywood Road, a small long-standing LGBTQ scene and a relaxed crowd that has mostly gone home by midnight.

Daytona's evenings are beach bars, tiki decks at sunset and the biker saloons of Main Street. Those saloons spill onto the street during Bike Week, Biketoberfest and race weeks and are much quieter the rest of the year.

This is Asheville's great strength. Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the eastern United States, and the Great Smoky Mountains are each about an hour away. Pisgah is right on the edge of town for waterfall walks and mountain biking, and the French Broad and Nantahala rivers are good for rafting.

Daytona's landscape is flat and watery but rich in wildlife. You can kayak the Mosquito Lagoon among dolphins, go birding at Merritt Island and see manatees at Blue Spring in winter. It has no hills, and summer heat pushes most outings into the early morning.

Daytona Beach is better placed for day trips, with three major outings each about an hour away. St Augustine has its Spanish fort and old streets, Kennedy Space Center has rockets and launch history, and Orlando has its theme parks, while New Smyrna Beach and DeLand make shorter trips.

From Asheville, the outings are mostly into the landscape or to small towns such as Brevard, Black Mountain and Hendersonville. The deepest of them is Cherokee, home to the Museum of the Cherokee Indian.

Both work for families, but for different children. Asheville suits active ones, with black bears and red wolves at the Western North Carolina Nature Center, river tubing, Sliding Rock and treetop zip lines. The nearest theme park, Dollywood, is two hours away over the mountains.

Daytona offers a classic beach stay: wide sand, boardwalk arcades, condos with pools and Orlando's parks within an hour. In return, parents have to watch for rip currents and should avoid the noisy event weeks.

Both towns are easier with a car. Asheville at least has a compact, walkable downtown, and the South Slope and River Arts District are a short stroll or ride away, although Biltmore, the Parkway and the trailheads all need a car.

Daytona is spread along long, wide roads on both sides of the river, and the buses are too infrequent to rely on. The hard sand is pleasant for walking and cycling, but nearly everything else means driving.

Asheville is the better place to buy something worth taking home. Its shopping is Appalachian craft: pottery, glass and weaving from the working studios of the River Arts District and from the Folk Art Center, plus independent bookshops and vintage clothing around the Grove Arcade and Lexington Avenue.

Daytona's shopping is practical. It has an outlet centre and a mall, swimwear and souvenir shops on the shore, and motorcycle gear on Main Street.

Daytona Beach is the easier trip on a budget. It has plenty of older oceanfront motels and condo rentals, and casual seafood keeps meals reasonable. Rates jump during the Daytona 500 and Bike Week.

Asheville's inns and downtown hotels are expensive by American standards, especially on autumn leaf weekends, and Biltmore is a costly day out. Its trails, waterfalls and the Parkway are free, though, and midweek or winter stays cost noticeably less. Both places add tipping and a hire car to the bill.

Asheville's music has roots. Bluegrass and old-time jams fill pubs and porches, Shindig on the Green holds free summer evenings of fiddling and clogging, the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival dates back to 1928, and touring Americana and indie acts play downtown most nights.

Daytona's best live performance is classical, with visiting orchestras on a winter series run by the local symphony society. The rest is touring Broadway shows at the Peabody Auditorium and free summer concerts at the oceanfront bandshell.

Asheville is the more restful choice and has a long history of it. It grew as a mountain retreat for people recovering their health, and it still has yoga studios, retreats, large spas in the hillside resort hotels and riverside mineral tubs at Hot Springs.

Daytona's calm is simpler: early walks on the hard sand, an afternoon by the pool and a few resort spas. That calm disappears when the engines arrive for race weeks and Bike Week.