Asheville or Orlando?

Neither city is on the coast, but Orlando has proper sand within reach. Cocoa Beach and New Smyrna Beach are wide, soft Atlantic strands about an hour east. Day to day, hotel pools and the big water parks cover the swimming.

Asheville's swimming is cold mountain water: waterfall pools in Pisgah, the rock slide at Sliding Rock, tubing on the French Broad and a small beach at Lake Lure. All of it makes a pleasant summer half-day, but none of it is a beach vacation.

Asheville eats and drinks with more character. Dozens of breweries are spread across downtown, the South Slope and West Asheville. The cooking is built on Appalachian farms, with trout, heirloom corn, foraged ramps and serious barbecue and biscuits, and the farmers' markets show where it all comes from.

Most Orlando visitors eat at chains and park counters, with Epcot's World Showcase the most interesting place to graze. The better tables are off the tourist corridors, in Winter Park and on Sand Lake Road, and you have to drive to them. Mills 50's Vietnamese and other Asian kitchens give Orlando the international range Asheville lacks.

Asheville has two real attractions. The first is the Biltmore Estate, the Vanderbilts' château with Olmsted's gardens, which needs a full day. The second is a downtown of 1920s Art Deco and Beaux-Arts buildings, including the domed City Hall and the Grove Arcade. Two or three days of sightseeing come easily.

Orlando grew from citrus groves and theme parks, so there is little old architecture. The Morse Museum in Winter Park, with the world's largest Tiffany collection, is worth a special trip. Beyond it, the art and history museums fill a slow afternoon.

The two are fairly even, but the nights feel different. Asheville means brewery taprooms, cocktail bars and dive bars, all within walking distance downtown and on the South Slope. It's sociable and relaxed, and mostly quiet by midnight.

Orlando has more dance floors and runs later. On weekends, a university crowd fills downtown bars and clubs around Orange Avenue and Church Street. The themed bars at Disney Springs and CityWalk offer an easy, earlier evening near the hotels.

This is Asheville's strongest category. The Blue Ridge Parkway runs along the edge of the city and Pisgah National Forest begins just south of town. Mount Mitchell and the Great Smokies are each about an hour away, with ridge hikes over grassy balds, top mountain biking and rafting on three rivers.

Orlando's outdoors is flat and watery. You can kayak at Wekiwa Springs, see manatees at Blue Spring in winter, ride airboats past alligators and watch birds at Merritt Island. All of it is rewarding, but the summer heat pushes most outings into the cooler months.

Orlando's day trips come with bigger names. The Kennedy Space Center, with the Saturn V and the shuttle Atlantis, is about an hour away. St Augustine's Spanish fort and old streets, Tampa's Ybor City and the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg each fill a full day.

Asheville's excursions are mostly into the landscape. There are small towns such as Brevard and Black Mountain, the Carl Sandburg Home and Greenville's riverside downtown. The Museum of the Cherokee Indian is the most rewarding stop.

Orlando is about as good as it gets for families. Walt Disney World, Universal, SeaWorld and Legoland are all here, alongside pool resorts, dinner shows and bunk-room suites. The only real challenges are heat, queues and the sheer size of it all.

Asheville suits active children more modestly. It offers waterfall hikes, river tubing, zip lines, the black bears and red wolves at the Nature Center and the farmyard at Biltmore. There is no large zoo or theme park, and Dollywood is two hours away.

You will want a car in both, but Asheville at least has a compact, walkable downtown, with the South Slope and River Arts District close by. Beyond that, you need wheels for Biltmore, the Parkway and the trailheads.

Orlando is built around highways, with the parks, hotel zones and downtown miles apart along Interstate 4, and walking between them isn't practical. The exception is the resorts. Disney's monorail, boats and gondolas and Universal's water taxis let families staying on-site manage without a car.

Orlando is the better place to shop for brands. Two premium outlet centres and the Mall at Millenia sell American and designer labels, and Winter Park's Park Avenue adds some character. Independent design and local crafts are scarce.

Asheville offers the opposite. It has handmade pottery, glass, weaving and woodwork in the downtown galleries, the River Arts District studios and the Folk Art Center. There are also independent bookshops and vintage clothing around Lexington Avenue, but almost no big brands.

In Asheville, most of the money goes on the room. Hotels and inns downtown and near Biltmore are dear by American standards, and they climb sharply on October weekends when the leaves turn. Add the Biltmore admission and a hire car. Against that, the trails, waterfalls and the Parkway cost nothing, and midweek or winter stays are noticeably gentler.

Orlando is the other way round, because the bed is the easy part. Fairly priced hotels and self-catering condos fill International Drive and Kissimmee. The bill builds up inside the gates instead, with multi-day park tickets, express passes, parking and meals in the parks, and school-vacation weeks push everything up. In the end, a week costs about the same in either city.

Asheville has the deeper live music culture. Its strength is the Appalachian tradition: bluegrass and old-time jams in pubs, buskers downtown, Shindig on the Green's summer fiddling and clogging, and the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, which has run since 1928. Touring rock and Americana bands also play most nights.

Orlando's formal stage is bigger. Touring Broadway productions and the Philharmonic play at the Dr. Phillips Center, and the long-running Orlando Fringe fills the spring. Beyond that, most performance happens inside the resorts, in polished park shows and fireworks.

Asheville has been a place to rest since the nineteenth century, when people came for its mountain air. It has retreats, yoga studios, the large spas of its hillside resort hotels and the outdoor mineral tubs on the river at Hot Springs. Cool evenings and quiet inn porches add to the calm.

In Orlando, rest is mostly recovery between park days. That means resort spas, lazy rivers and pool areas around Lake Buena Vista. Couples who want real calm will find it more easily in leafy Winter Park.