Asheville or Miami?

Asheville has no beach to speak of. Its swimming is mountain water: the natural rock slide at Sliding Rock, cold pools under the Pisgah waterfalls, tubing on the French Broad and a small sandy beach at Lake Lure. These make pleasant summer half-days, but the water is chilly even in July.

Miami is built around its beach. The pale sand runs from South Beach up to Surfside, the sea is warm enough for swimming even in winter, and Key Biscayne has calmer, shallower water for children. The shoreline is flat and built-up rather than scenic, and seaweed can wash in during summer.

Asheville is a brewing town first, with dozens of taprooms across downtown, the South Slope and West Asheville. Its kitchens cook from Appalachian farms, so expect trout, heirloom beans, ramps, barbecue and biscuits. Beyond Southern and modern American cooking, though, the choice narrows quickly.

Miami has the broader table. Cafecito and croquetas in Little Havana, Haitian griot, Venezuelan arepas and Peruvian ceviche give it a Caribbean and Latin American range that Asheville cannot match, and stone crab and grouper bring a seafood side the mountains lack. Asheville has the better farmers' markets, but Miami is the place for lunch counters and late dinners.

In both cities a few days of sightseeing centre on one grand house and a district of early twentieth-century buildings. In Asheville that means the Biltmore Estate, which fills a full day on its own, and a downtown of 1920s Art Deco and Beaux-Arts landmarks such as the domed City Hall and the Grove Arcade. The Folk Art Center adds a strong thread of Appalachian craft.

In Miami, the grand house is Vizcaya on Biscayne Bay and the district is the pastel 1930s hotels of South Beach. Miami also has more contemporary art, with the Perez Art Museum, Wynwood's murals and the Design District galleries, and Little Havana tells the story of the Cuban exiles.

Asheville's evenings are sociable and end early. You get brewery taprooms, cocktail bars and dive bars on the South Slope and along Haywood Road in West Asheville, plus the summer drum circle in Pritchard Park, and most places are quiet by midnight.

Miami is in another league. There are glossy South Beach clubs with international DJs and dress codes, downtown venues open until dawn, Brickell rooftops, Wynwood warehouse parties and salsa on Calle Ocho, and the nights last as long as your stamina and budget hold out.

Asheville is surrounded by mountains. The Blue Ridge Parkway, Pisgah National Forest and the Great Smoky Mountains are all within about an hour. They offer waterfall walks, ridge hikes over grassy balds, some of the country's best mountain biking and white-water on the Nantahala and Pigeon rivers, and the October colours are the high point of the year.

Miami's outdoors are flat and wet. The Everglades have airboats, alligators and wading birds, and Biscayne Bay and the Key Largo reefs are good for kayaking and snorkelling. There are no hills, though, and summer heat and mosquitoes push the best of it into winter.

Neither city is a great base for excursions, but Asheville has a little more to fill a spare day. Small mountain towns such as Brevard, Black Mountain and Hendersonville are close by. Cherokee's museum and the Oconaluftee village give a serious look at the region's original people, and orchards and vineyards make good autumn drives.

From Miami the choices are Fort Lauderdale, the mansions and Flagler Museum of Palm Beach, and seafood stops in the Upper Keys. Key West is too far for a comfortable day, so most spare days end up on the beach or in the Everglades.

Miami is the easier choice for families. It has warm, calm water at Key Biscayne and North Beach, Zoo Miami, the aquarium and planetarium at Frost Science, and hotels designed around pools. Long drives and summer heat do take some effort.

Asheville suits active families best, with black bears and red wolves at the Western North Carolina Nature Center, plus tubing, Sliding Rock and zip lines. There is no zoo, aquarium or theme park in town, so children who want big attractions will find more to do in Miami.

Asheville's walkable core is small and hilly. Everything beyond it, from Biltmore to the trailheads and the Parkway, means a hire car on winding mountain roads, with very little bus service to fall back on, and on October weekends the scenic routes slow right down.

Miami spreads much further, but more of it can be covered without a car. The free Metromover links downtown and Brickell, the Metrorail runs to the airport, and South Beach is flat enough to walk or cycle, with ride-hailing filling the gaps. You will still want a hire car for the Everglades and the Keys, and the traffic is heavier than in Asheville.

Miami is the shopping destination of the two. It has flagship stores of the big fashion houses in the Design District, the exclusive open-air mall at Bal Harbour, the vast Aventura Mall and the outlet malls, which together cover everything from luxury to bargains, with Lincoln Road for mainstream brands.

Asheville is the opposite. There are almost no big brands, but you can buy handmade pottery, glass, weaving and woodwork from the River Arts District studios, the downtown galleries and the Folk Art Center, and browse independent boutiques around the Grove Arcade. That kind of local craft is the one thing Miami barely offers.

Asheville's biggest costs are a Biltmore ticket and rooms on autumn leaf weekends, while its trails, waterfalls and the Parkway cost nothing, so a week there usually comes to less than one in Miami. Staying midweek or in winter brings the bill down further.

Miami's beachfront hotels charge high winter rates and add resort fees and parking, and drinks in South Beach clubs are among the dearest anywhere. Free beaches, cheap Cuban lunch counters and a base on the mainland all help to soften it.

The two are evenly matched but offer different things. Asheville's strength is roots music: bluegrass and old-time jams, buskers downtown, free evenings of fiddle and clogging at Shindig on the Green, and the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, which has run since 1928.

Miami has the formal stage that Asheville lacks. There is opera and touring Broadway at the Adrienne Arsht Center, Miami City Ballet, and the New World Symphony in its Frank Gehry hall, plus salsa and Afro-Cuban bands in Little Havana. Most of the season falls in winter.

Asheville is the more restful choice and has drawn people to its mountain air since the nineteenth century. It has yoga studios and retreats, spas in the hillside resort hotels, and outdoor mineral-water tubs by the river at Hot Springs, about forty minutes away. The cool evenings and quiet inn porches do the rest.

In Miami, wellness means a resort spa with an ocean view, sunrise yoga on the sand and one long-established Russian and Turkish bath house. The noise of South Beach works against calm, so Key Biscayne or Surfside are the places to slow down.