Asheville or St. Augustine?

Asheville has no sea at all. Swimming there means icy waterfall pools, Sliding Rock and summer floats on the French Broad, all pleasant for a few hours but nothing like a beach vacation.

St. Augustine has miles of pale, flat Atlantic sand on Anastasia Island, from the state park dunes down to Crescent Beach, with Vilano Beach to the north. The water is warm and easy for swimming from late spring into autumn, and it is close enough to the old town to fit into any day.

Asheville eats and drinks far better for a town of its size. Its breweries are the main event, and chef-led kitchens build menus around Appalachian trout, heirloom corn, ramps and Southern barbecue, with tailgate markets showing where it all comes from.

St. Augustine's table is narrower: shrimp, oysters and fried fish by the water, lifted by the Minorcan datil pepper in its chowder and pilau. Away from a few chef-run places, the old-town restaurants cater mostly to passing visitors.

St. Augustine has the deeper history. Founded by the Spanish in 1565, it offers the Castillo de San Marcos, balconied lanes in the Spanish quarter and the Gilded Age splendour of Flagler College and the Lightner Museum, layered within a short walk of one another.

Asheville's sights are more concentrated in one place, the vast Biltmore Estate, plus a downtown of handsome Art Deco buildings and a few smaller museums. Both take two or three days, but St. Augustine's span of centuries gives more to see.

Neither town keeps going late, but Asheville gives a fuller evening. Taprooms on the South Slope, cocktail bars downtown and the local bars of Haywood Road in West Asheville offer more variety, along with a long-standing LGBTQ scene and the Friday drum circle in summer.

St. Augustine's nights revolve around courtyard pubs and patios in the old town, livelier on weekends with visitors and students, plus a few beach bars on the island.

Asheville is a mountain base of real scale. The Blue Ridge Parkway, Pisgah National Forest, Mount Mitchell and the Great Smoky Mountains are all within about an hour, with ridge hikes, grassy balds, mountain biking and rafting rivers, and blazing colour in October.

St. Augustine's outdoors is gentler and entirely flat: salt marsh, dunes and lagoons, best explored by kayak or paddleboard among dolphins and wading birds. Summer heat confines it to early mornings.

The two are broadly level, and both need a car, but the outings differ. From Asheville, the drives lead into landscape and small mountain towns such as Brevard and Black Mountain, with Cherokee's museum giving the strongest cultural day.

From St. Augustine, the destinations are bigger names but further away: Jacksonville's museums, Victorian Fernandina Beach, and long days to Kennedy Space Center or the Orlando parks.

St. Augustine is easier with children. The Alligator Farm, cannon firings at the Castillo, a lighthouse to climb and gentle surf all sit close together in a compact, safe town.

Asheville suits active families instead, with the Nature Center's bears and wolves, river tubing, Sliding Rock and zip lines, but the sights are scattered and much of the day is spent in the car.

St. Augustine is the simpler of the two. Its historic district is flat and small, sightseeing trolleys loop the main sights, and the beaches are a short drive or bike ride away.

Asheville's downtown is walkable but hilly, and almost everything visitors come for, from Biltmore to the Parkway trailheads, means slow, winding mountain driving, with heavy traffic on October weekends.

Asheville is the better place to buy something worth keeping. Potters, weavers and glassmakers sell from studios in the River Arts District and galleries downtown, and the Grove Arcade and Lexington Avenue add bookshops, vintage and outdoor gear.

St. Augustine's St. George Street is mostly fudge, T-shirts and pirate souvenirs, though the galleries and antique shops of Aviles Street and a jar of datil-pepper sauce are better finds.

Costs are much the same, and neither is cheap. In Asheville the squeeze comes on autumn leaf weekends, and a Biltmore ticket and hire car add up, but the trails and Parkway cost nothing.

In St. Augustine, the old-town inns are dearest at weekends in spring and summer, while highway motels and the free public beaches keep a stay in check.

Asheville has the stronger musical life, rooted in Appalachian tradition. Bluegrass and old-time jams, street buskers, free fiddle-and-clogging evenings at Shindig on the Green and the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival, running since 1928, sit alongside venues hosting touring Americana and indie acts.

St. Augustine's highlight is the open-air amphitheatre in the Anastasia Island woods, with cover bands on old-town patios filling other nights.

Asheville was built partly on health-seeking, and it shows in its yoga studios, retreats, grand hillside resort spas and the riverside mineral tubs at Hot Springs, about forty minutes away.

St. Augustine has a few hotel treatment rooms and day spas; its calm comes instead from shaded B&B verandas and an evening walk along the bayfront seawall.