Asheville or Palm Beach?

This is Palm Beach's strongest advantage. Asheville is hours from any sea, and swimming there means cold plunges under Pisgah's waterfalls, the rock slide at Sliding Rock, tubing on the French Broad or the small sandy shore at Lake Lure. These make pleasant summer afternoons, but none of them is beach life.

Palm Beach sits on the Atlantic with the Gulf Stream close by, so the water is clear and warm through the winter. The town's own beaches can be narrow behind the seawalls. Singer Island, Juno and Delray are a short drive away for wider sand, and Peanut Island has shallow, sheltered water for snorkelling.

Asheville eats with a stronger sense of place. Its breweries and taprooms are a reason to visit in themselves, and the cooking draws on Appalachian farms: trout, ramps, heirloom beans, barbecue and biscuits, with farmers' markets to show where it all comes from. The weak spot is the narrow range of international food.

Palm Beach is more formal than distinctive. Expect French and Italian dining rooms, stone crab in season and dress codes, all done well but rarely memorable. West Palm Beach adds Cuban bakeries and Caribbean takeaways, but nothing like Asheville's regional cooking or its brewing.

Both are Gilded Age towns, built around a great mansion. Asheville's Biltmore is the bigger day out, a vast château with Olmsted gardens, and the downtown adds a rare run of 1920s Art Deco buildings around City Hall and the Grove Arcade. Palm Beach answers with Flagler's marble Whitehall, Mizner's Mediterranean courtyards on Worth Avenue and a drive past the ocean-front estates.

Asheville has more to see overall, but the best single art collection is in Palm Beach, at the Norton Museum in West Palm Beach. Each fills two or three days.

Neither town is built for late nights, but Asheville is more fun after dark. Its taprooms, cocktail bars and dives sit within walking distance of each other downtown and on the South Slope, Haywood Road has a local bar strip, and the crowd is relaxed and mixed.

On Palm Beach island the evening usually ends with a hotel bar and an early night. For a night out you cross to Clematis Street in West Palm Beach, which is livelier at weekends but small.

Asheville's landscape is the main reason to go. The Blue Ridge Parkway, Pisgah National Forest, Mount Mitchell and the Great Smokies are all close, with ridge hikes, mountain biking, whitewater rivers and spectacular October colour.

Palm Beach's nature is flat and coastal, and its best side is underwater. The shallow dive under the Blue Heron Bridge is famous for seahorses and octopus, and reefs lie just offshore. Inland, the Loxahatchee refuge has alligators and wading birds. In winter, manatees gather in warm water near the coast. This makes good variety for a few days, but it cannot match Asheville's mountains.

The two are broadly level here, but the outings are of very different kinds. From Asheville, most outings head into the mountains or to small towns such as Brevard, Black Mountain and Hendersonville. The deepest heritage outing is to Cherokee, with its museum and Oconaluftee village.

Palm Beach has one big-city day out: Miami, an easy trip on the fast train, with South Beach and Little Havana. The coast either side offers resort towns such as Delray and Boca Raton, which feel much like one another.

Palm Beach has more for children, once you cross the bridge. There is a zoo with panthers, a science centre and aquarium, manatee viewing and a drive-through safari park, and Peanut Island's shallow lagoon suits small swimmers. The island itself is formal and suits adults more than children.

Asheville suits active children. There are bears and red wolves at the Nature Center, tubing, Sliding Rock and zip lines. It has no zoo or theme park, and Dollywood is two hours away over the mountains.

Both have walkable centres, and in both you will want a car for almost everything else. Asheville's downtown is hilly, and its main sights, from Biltmore to the trailheads, lie along slow, winding mountain roads that clog on October weekends.

Palm Beach is flat and good for cycling along the Lake Trail. West Palm Beach has a free trolley loop, and the fast train reaches Miami without a car.

Palm Beach is the stronger shopping destination, and the better one for designer labels. Worth Avenue gathers the luxury houses and jewellers in its courtyards and vias, the consignment shops sell pre-owned designer pieces, and Antique Row offers serious furniture and decorative arts.

Asheville sells handmade things instead: pottery, glass and weaving from the River Arts District studios and the Folk Art Center, plus independent boutiques around the Grove Arcade. You will find no luxury brands there.

Neither is cheap, but Asheville costs a great deal less. Its inns are pricey on autumn weekends, and a hire car and Biltmore tickets add up. Even so, the mountains cost almost nothing to enjoy, and midweek and winter stays ease the bill.

Palm Beach ranks among the most expensive resort towns in the country, from winter hotel rooms to beach parking. The usual way to save is to stay in West Palm Beach or come in the steamy summer.

Asheville is the place for live music. Bluegrass and old-time jams fill pubs and porches, buskers play downtown, Shindig on the Green holds free fiddle evenings in summer, and the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival has run since 1928.

Palm Beach is more formal and follows the winter season: Broadway tours, ballet and opera at the Kravis Center, and serious drama from Palm Beach Dramaworks. It suits a night at the theatre better than a night of music, and its programme thins out from late spring.

Both are restful places, though they rest in different ways. Asheville's tradition goes back to its health-resort days. It has yoga studios, retreats and alternative therapies, and at Hot Springs you can soak in riverside tubs fed by mineral water.

In Palm Beach, wellness centres on the large oceanfront resort spas, with salt-water pools, morning sea swims and beach yoga. It is polished, but it is expensive and there is nothing communal about it.