Asheville or New York?

Neither city is a beach destination, but only New York has the sea. Swimming around Asheville means cold mountain water: waterfall pools in Pisgah, the natural slide at Sliding Rock, tubing on the French Broad and the small sandy strip at Lake Lure.

New York can give you a proper Atlantic day in high summer. Coney Island has its boardwalk, the Rockaways have longer beaches with surf, and Jones Beach on Long Island is about an hour away, all reachable on public transport. Expect crowds at weekends.

Asheville eats well for its size, and its strength is local. It has dozens of brewery taprooms across downtown and the South Slope, and Appalachian cooking built on trout, heirloom corn, ramps and barbecue. Beyond Southern and modern American food, though, the choice soon runs thin.

New York has far more range and depth. Whole cuisines are cooked by their own communities in Flushing, Jackson Heights, Greenpoint and Crown Heights. Cheap classics like the pizza slice, the bagel and deli pastrami are on every block, and above them sits one of the world's deepest fine-dining scenes.

Asheville's sights come down to two things. The first is the Biltmore Estate, which takes a full day between the Vanderbilts' château and Olmsted's gardens. The second is a downtown of 1920s Art Deco and Beaux-Arts buildings. Add the art museum and the Thomas Wolfe house and two or three days are plenty.

New York could keep a museum lover busy for weeks, with the Met, MoMA, the Natural History museum and the Cloisters, as well as landmarks from the Statue of Liberty to Grand Central. Both cities tell a mostly nineteenth and twentieth-century story, but New York tells it on a far larger scale.

A night in Asheville is a relaxed walk between taprooms, cocktail bars and dives downtown and on the South Slope, or along Haywood Road in West Asheville. There are few places to dance, and most of the town has gone quiet by around midnight.

New York goes on until morning. Each neighbourhood has its own mood, from West Village wine bars and Midtown rooftops to the Village gay bars that go back to Stonewall. At weekends the warehouse clubs of Williamsburg and Bushwick keep dancing past dawn.

This is where Asheville pulls well ahead. The Blue Ridge Parkway, Pisgah National Forest, Mount Mitchell and the Great Smokies are all within about an hour. Between them they offer ridge hikes over grassy balds, some of the country's best mountain biking and whitewater on three rivers.

New York's nature is mostly designed parkland, such as Central Park, Prospect Park and the High Line, along with birding at Jamaica Bay. Real hiking means a train up the Hudson to Breakneck Ridge, which makes a good outing but only a single day. Both cities are at their finest when the leaves turn in October.

Asheville's excursions are mostly into the landscape. Small towns such as Hendersonville, Brevard and Black Mountain lie along the way, and the Cherokee museum makes the strongest cultural outing. You will need a car for nearly all of them.

New York has more substantial places within reach by train. Philadelphia has its colonial old town, Princeton and New Haven have their universities, and the Hudson Valley has Gilded Age estates, Dia Beacon and Storm King. That makes it easy to add a whole second city to the trip.

Asheville suits active children: the bears and red wolves at the Nature Center, Sliding Rock, river tubing, zip lines and the farmyard at Biltmore. There is no big zoo, aquarium or theme park, though, and a lot of the day goes on driving.

New York has far more built for young visitors, from the dinosaurs and planetarium at the Natural History museum to the Bronx Zoo, the Coney Island aquarium and the aircraft carrier on the Hudson. The trade-off is subway stations with only stairs, small hotel rooms and Midtown crowds, which tire small children faster than Asheville's easy pace.

In Asheville you can only walk around a small core, downtown and the South Slope, and the buses do little for visitors. Biltmore, the Parkway and the trailheads all need a car, on slow, winding roads that fill with traffic on October weekends.

In New York a car is more trouble than help. The Manhattan grid is easy to walk, the subway runs all night across four boroughs, and ferries and Citi Bike fill the gaps. The express and local lines and the weekend reroutes do take some learning.

Asheville is the place to buy one good handmade piece. Pottery, glass, weaving and woodwork come from the River Arts District studios and the Folk Art Center, and the Grove Arcade has independent shops. There are no luxury labels or department stores.

New York covers every level. Fifth Avenue has the flagship stores and Madison Avenue the luxury houses, alongside the historic department stores, SoHo's fashion brands, Williamsburg vintage and specialist shops for books, records and cameras. Serious shoppers will find far more here.

Neither city is cheap, but Asheville is easier on the wallet. Its inns are expensive, especially when the leaves turn, and a hire car and Biltmore entry add up. Still, the trails, waterfalls and Parkway cost nothing, and stays midweek or in winter are noticeably cheaper.

New York is one of the most expensive cities in the world to visit. Hotel rooms are small and costly, every bill comes with tax and a tip, and tickets for the theatre and observation decks are steep. Pizza slices, food carts, the free ferry and parks, and a room in Brooklyn or Queens all help, but the total stays high.

Asheville's music has real local character. There are bluegrass and old-time jams, buskers downtown, free evenings of fiddle music and clogging at Shindig on the Green, and a folk festival that has run since 1928. Its symphony and theatres are pleasant but modest.

New York is the stronger stage city by a long way. It has Broadway, the Metropolitan Opera, the Philharmonic and New York City Ballet at Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. Add the Village jazz clubs, Harlem gospel and free Shakespeare in the park, and there is something worth seeing every night of the trip.

People have come to Asheville to recover since the nineteenth century, and it shows. There are resort spas on the hillsides, a strong yoga and retreat culture and outdoor mineral tubs by the river at Hot Springs, along with cool evenings and quiet porches.

Bathing in New York is more intense and more urban: the old Russian and Turkish bathhouse in the East Village, the banyas of Brighton Beach and Korean-style spas a short trip away. Outside the steam room, though, the noise and pace make real rest hard to find.