Asheville or Orange Beach?

Around Asheville, swimming is a summer half-day in cold mountain water, a waterfall pool or a float down the French Broad before heading back to the trails. The sea is several hours' drive away.

Orange Beach is built for a whole vacation on the sand. Its fine white quartz beach runs unbroken along the Gulf, the water is warm through the summer and shelves gently, and Alabama Point and the state park give more room than the stretch below the condo towers. Swim where the flags say it is safe, because rip currents are a real hazard, and bear in mind the hurricane risk in late summer and early autumn.

Asheville is the better place to eat and drink by some distance. Its breweries are spread across downtown, the South Slope and West Asheville. Its kitchens cook from Appalachian farms, with trout, heirloom beans, foraged ramps, barbecue and biscuits, and the farmers' markets show where it all comes from.

Orange Beach does one thing well: Gulf seafood eaten by the water. Expect Royal Red shrimp, oysters, snapper and West Indies salad at the back-bay fish houses. After a few good seafood dinners, though, the menus along the main road start to repeat themselves.

Asheville has two or three days of real sightseeing. The Biltmore Estate and its Olmsted gardens take a full day. The Art Deco and Beaux-Arts downtown around City Hall and the Grove Arcade is worth exploring on foot, and the Thomas Wolfe Memorial and the Folk Art Center add smaller stops.

Orange Beach has a small museum of local fishing and Native American history and very little else. The forts and old towns of the coast all mean a day out.

Neither city is for clubbing, but Asheville makes the better evening. Taprooms, cocktail bars and dive bars are within walking distance of each other downtown and on the South Slope. Haywood Road has a more local strip and there is a small LGBTQ bar scene, though most places quieten around midnight.

Orange Beach nights mean beach bars and waterfront decks, led by the old roadhouse on the Alabama-Florida line. They are loud in spring break and summer and quiet the rest of the year. The bars are scattered, so someone has to drive or you need a taxi.

Both are good bases for the outdoors, but Asheville's landscape is the bigger draw. It has the Blue Ridge Parkway, Mount Mitchell, ridge walks over Max Patch, the Great Smokies about an hour west, the mountain-bike trails of Pisgah and whitewater rafting. Spring brings rhododendron blooms and October brings the leaf colour.

Orange Beach is flat coastal country, and its outdoors is mostly on the water: kayaking the back bays, dolphin cruises, charter fishing and diving over artificial reefs. On land there is the paved trail through Gulf State Park and birdwatching at Bon Secour.

The two are evenly matched for day trips, and neither list would justify the journey on its own. Outings from Asheville are mostly into the landscape and the small mountain towns: Brevard and its waterfalls, Flat Rock, Black Mountain, and the Cherokee museum to the west.

From Orange Beach the outings are about history and towns. Pensacola has its colonial quarter and naval aviation museum, and Mobile has antebellum streets and the oldest Mardi Gras in the country. Closer in are Fort Morgan and the car ferry to Dauphin Island.

Orange Beach is the easier family trip. Shallow sandy water, condos with kitchens and pools, dolphin boats and mini golf keep young children busy, and a water park and small zoo are within half an hour. Rip currents do mean watching children closely in the sea.

Asheville suits active children better than small ones, with bears and red wolves at the nature centre, river tubing, Sliding Rock and zip lines. There is no zoo or theme park in town and a lot of driving between sights, so it asks more of a family.

Asheville has a walkable downtown and Orange Beach has a single highway, and that is the main difference here. Asheville's compact, slightly hilly centre runs on foot into the South Slope breweries, and the River Arts District is a short ride away. Beyond that, the Biltmore, the Parkway and the trailheads all need a car.

Orange Beach strings its condos, restaurants and marina along one coastal road for several miles, with almost no useful buses. Walking ends at the edge of your block and summer traffic crawls, so a bike on the paved trails is the only real alternative to driving.

Asheville is worth an afternoon of browsing for anyone who likes handmade things. Its downtown galleries and the studios of the River Arts District sell pottery, glass, weaving and woodwork, and the streets around Lexington Avenue and the Grove Arcade have independent shops.

Orange Beach sells beachwear, souvenirs and fishing gear along the main road. Visitors who want brands drive inland to the outlet mall at Foley.

Neither is cheap, and the costs come from the same places: a hire car, American restaurant bills plus tips, and rooms that rise with the season. Where they differ is timing. Asheville is most expensive on October leaf weekends and cheaper midweek and in winter, and its trails and Parkway cost nothing.

Orange Beach is expensive in summer but rates drop sharply from late autumn to early spring. Groups who share a large rental with a kitchen get the most for their money.

Asheville has much the richer music scene. Touring rock, indie and Americana acts play downtown most nights, but the real draw is the Appalachian tradition: bluegrass jams, street buskers, Shindig on the Green and the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, which has run since 1928. A regional symphony and small theatres complete the programme.

Orange Beach has summer tours at the marina amphitheatre, cover bands in the beach bars and a long-running songwriters' festival on the state line each November. There is no theatre or classical music.

Asheville is the more restful choice. Its history as a place people came to recover their health lives on in yoga studios, retreats and the spas of the hillside resort hotels. Hot Springs, about forty minutes away, has outdoor mineral tubs beside the river.

Orange Beach has a few resort spas. Its calm comes from slow off-season mornings and sunsets over the back bays, and summer weekends and spring break are too noisy for real rest.