Asheville or Kansas City?

Neither city is a beach destination, and both say so plainly. Asheville's swimming is wilder: cold pools under Pisgah waterfalls, the rock slide at Sliding Rock, tubing on the French Broad and a small sandy beach on Lake Lure.

Kansas City offers lake beaches in county parks on the edge of the metro area, plus hotel and public pools. That is gentler and warmer, but less memorable.

The two are evenly matched, but the food is built differently. Asheville's pride is its beer, with dozens of taprooms across downtown, the South Slope and West Asheville. Its kitchens cook Appalachian farm produce such as trout, ramps, heirloom beans and biscuits.

Kansas City eats for the smoke: hickory barbecue, thick sweet sauce and burnt ends, plus old steakhouses. It also has more international variety, with Vietnamese, Ethiopian and Mexican cooking in the River Market and on the Westside. Asheville's range beyond Southern food is thin.

Asheville's sightseeing is about buildings. The Biltmore Estate, with its château and Olmsted gardens, takes a whole day, and the downtown keeps a rare run of Art Deco and Beaux-Arts buildings such as the domed City Hall and the Grove Arcade. Its museums are small by comparison.

Kansas City's sights are its collections. The Nelson-Atkins has a fine Chinese collection, the National WWI Museum sits under the Liberty Memorial, and 18th and Vine has the Negro Leagues and jazz museums. The trade-off is distance, because those sights are spread across the boulevards rather than grouped on a few walkable streets.

An evening in Asheville stays on foot. Taprooms, cocktail bars and dive bars sit close together downtown and on the South Slope, and Haywood Road in West Asheville has a looser local strip. There is a small, long-standing LGBTQ scene, and most places go quiet around midnight.

Kansas City splits its nights between districts that need a ride from one to the next. The Power and Light District has loud sports bars on game nights, Westport is the student bar strip, and the Crossroads and River Market are calmer. More bars stay open late, but mostly on Friday and Saturday.

This is the biggest gap between the two. Asheville sits in a bowl of the Southern Appalachians, close to grassy balds such as Max Patch, the Appalachian Trail, whitewater on the Nantahala and Pigeon rivers, and October colour across whole ridges.

Kansas City's surroundings are rolling prairie and farmland. Its best outdoor moments are in town, in Swope Park and Loose Park's rose garden, or on creek trails and reservoir walks. Real hiking country such as the Ozarks is several hours away.

Asheville has the better range of outings, mostly because the land around it is the attraction. Brevard leads into waterfall country, and Cherokee's museum and Oconaluftee village show the region's original people. Greenville's riverside downtown and the autumn orchards add variety.

From Kansas City, the choices are smaller half days. You can see Truman's home and library in Independence, the university main street in Lawrence, the old river town of Weston, and the Pony Express museum in St Joseph. All of them need a car.

Kansas City is the better bet for most families. Worlds of Fun and its water park, the large zoo, Science City inside Union Station, and the aquarium and Legoland Discovery Centre at Crown Center cover several days without much planning.

Asheville works best for active children. They can see bears and red wolves at the Nature Center, ride Sliding Rock, try zip lines and visit the Biltmore farmyard. There is no theme park closer than Dollywood, two hours across the mountains.

In Asheville the car is for the mountains. The downtown is compact and easy to walk, if hilly in places, but Biltmore, the Parkway, the trailheads and the waterfalls lie along winding roads that fill with traffic on October weekends.

Kansas City is built around its highways, which move easily and come with plenty of parking, but its sights are far apart. Its advantage is the Main Street streetcar from the River Market through downtown to Crown Center. If you stay along that line, you can manage a car-free day or two, which Asheville's thin bus network cannot offer.

Asheville is better for bringing home something you couldn't buy elsewhere. Pottery, glass, weaving and woodwork are sold in the River Arts District studios and at the Folk Art Center, and the Grove Arcade has independent boutiques.

Kansas City's main shopping is at the Country Club Plaza, with its Spanish-style towers, national chains and upmarket stores. Crossroads galleries and Westport record shops add some character, but local souvenirs mostly mean barbecue sauce and sports gear.

Kansas City is somewhat kinder to the wallet. Downtown hotel rooms cost less than in Asheville, barbecue lunches are filling, and the Nelson-Atkins charges nothing for general entry.

Asheville's inns charge weekend-escape prices that climb sharply in leaf season, and a day at Biltmore is expensive. What saves money there are free trails, waterfalls and the Parkway, plus midweek or winter stays. In either city, budget for a hire car.

Kansas City has the deeper programme. Its own hard-swinging jazz still plays most nights around 18th and Vine, often with late jam sessions. The Kauffman Center hosts the symphony, opera and ballet, and the open-air Starlight Theatre stages musicals in summer.

Asheville's strength is Appalachian roots music: bluegrass and old-time jams, Shindig on the Green on summer evenings, and a folk festival dating from 1928. Its concert halls and theatres are modest.

Asheville is the clear choice for rest. It has been a place to recover in the mountain air since the nineteenth century, and today it has resort spas, yoga and retreat culture, and outdoor mineral tubs by the river at Hot Springs.

Kansas City mostly offers hotel and day spas, with the old mineral resort of Excelsior Springs to the north. A quiet morning there means the rose garden or the sculpture park rather than a soak.