Asheville or New Orleans?

Neither is a beach destination, and the swimming they offer is very different. Asheville's is cold mountain water: plunge pools under waterfalls, the rock slide at Sliding Rock, tubing on the French Broad and a small sandy beach at Lake Lure.

From New Orleans, the warm but murky Gulf at Bay St. Louis is over an hour's drive, and in the city itself a hotel pool is what most people end up using.

New Orleans has one of the few truly local cuisines in the country, with Creole and Cajun dishes, century-old French Quarter dining rooms, beignets by Jackson Square and cocktails that were invented there. Asheville eats very well for its size, but its strengths are craft beer and Appalachian farm cooking, such as trout, ramps and barbecue.

So Asheville offers good meals and better beer, and New Orleans offers food you would travel for. Neither has much range beyond its own tradition, and New Orleans cooking is the heavier of the two.

Asheville's sights come down to the Biltmore Estate, a full day of Gilded Age house and Olmsted gardens, and a downtown of Art Deco buildings around City Hall and the Grove Arcade. Beyond them there are a few small museums, and two or three days is enough.

New Orleans has more to walk through. There is the colonial grid of the French Quarter around the Cabildo and St. Louis Cathedral, the mansions of the Garden District, above-ground tombs and the large National WWII Museum. It is history you find in the streets rather than in galleries, and there is far more of it.

This is where the two cities are furthest apart. An Asheville evening means a taproom or cocktail bar on the South Slope or Haywood Road, a friendly crowd and bed soon after midnight.

New Orleans has no closing time and lets you carry drinks along the street, so a night drifts from Bourbon Street's neon to the bars on Frenchmen Street and in the Bywater until dawn. The rowdier end comes with pickpockets and the need for a taxi home.

Asheville wins this easily, and the outdoors is its main reason to visit. It sits among the Southern Appalachians, with the Parkway, Pisgah, Max Patch, the Appalachian Trail and the Great Smoky Mountains all close by, and offers mountain biking, rafting, spring rhododendrons and famous October colour.

The New Orleans landscape is flat and wet. Its outdoors means cypress swamps with alligators, the boardwalks of the Barataria Preserve, the oaks of City Park and the river levee, and the summer heat cuts most of that short.

The choice of outings is roughly the same size from each city, but they lead to different things. From Asheville you go mostly into the landscape, to the waterfall country around Brevard and small towns such as Hendersonville and Black Mountain. Cherokee and its museum give the deepest look at the region's past.

From New Orleans you go into history. The River Road plantations, with the Whitney the most moving of them, are the classic outing, followed by Gulf towns such as Ocean Springs and the Cajun dance halls around Lafayette.

Both work for children, but for different kinds of family. Asheville suits active children, with bears and red wolves at the nature centre, waterfall walks, river tubing, zip lines and the Biltmore farmyard, although a lot of the day goes on driving.

New Orleans has the attractions that Asheville lacks, such as a zoo, an aquarium and City Park's carousel and children's museum, plus streetcars and parade beads. The drawbacks are the summer heat and the care needed about where you walk after dark.

In New Orleans the French Quarter, the Marigny and the Warehouse District sit in a flat, walkable strip along the river, and the slow green streetcars on St. Charles Avenue are a pleasure in themselves. You only need a car for day trips.

Asheville is walkable only downtown and on the South Slope. Biltmore, the Parkway and every trailhead mean winding mountain roads, so a hire car is close to essential.

Both cities favour independent shops over designer labels, and New Orleans has slightly more of them. Asheville is the place for handmade Appalachian craft, such as pottery, glass and weaving from the River Arts District studios and the Folk Art Center.

New Orleans has a broader mix. There are antiques and estate jewellery on Royal Street, miles of boutiques and vintage shops along Magazine Street, and Carnival masks that you will not find anywhere else.

Neither is cheap, and the two cost roughly the same, but the money goes in different places. In Asheville, it goes on hire cars, Biltmore tickets and inns that cost more on autumn weekends, while the trails and waterfalls are free.

In New Orleans, the hotel room is the big expense, especially around Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. Po'boys, the streetcar and the street music keep the rest of the day affordable, and you won't need a car.

New Orleans, where jazz was born, has live music every night of the year, with brass bands, funk, zydeco and blues on Frenchmen Street, Sunday second lines and the Jazz & Heritage Festival. Asheville has a real music culture of its own in bluegrass and old-time jams, Shindig on the Green and a folk festival running since 1928, along with touring Americana acts.

Neither city offers much in the way of formal arts, so in both cases the reason to go is the music in clubs and on the streets, and New Orleans has a great deal more of it.

Asheville has been a place to rest since nineteenth-century visitors came for its mountain air. Today it has retreats, yoga studios, large spas in the hillside resort hotels and riverside mineral tubs at Hot Springs.

New Orleans has no bathing tradition and only a few hotel day spas. Rest there means a quiet courtyard guesthouse or a slow afternoon in City Park.