Atlantic City or Pigeon Forge?

On this point the two are not close. In Atlantic City the ocean is the reason for the trip: you can walk from your hotel to open Atlantic surf, and spend whole days on the sand without a car or any plan. If the main strand feels too busy, Margate or Brigantine are quieter.

Pigeon Forge is a mountain town far inland. A swim there is a way to cool off between other plans, in a lake, a park stream or a water park, and it is never the main event. If sand and salt water matter to you at all, the choice is made.

Neither town is somewhere you travel to for the food, but Atlantic City gives you more to choose from. Its Italian-American restaurants in Ducktown, its big subs on soft local rolls and the crab shacks around Gardner's Basin and Margate have a real sense of place. That is apart from the casino steakhouses and buffets, which are much like those in any gambling town.

Pigeon Forge eats along the Parkway: pancake houses, Southern buffets, barbecue and chains. Moonshine tastings and cornmeal treats at the Old Mill are the only local touches. For serious Southern cooking, people drive to Knoxville or Asheville.

Atlantic City has more genuine history, though a day is enough to see it. You can walk on the first boardwalk of its kind, laid in 1870, and along the streets whose names ended up on the Monopoly board. Boardwalk Hall is a grand Art Deco hall that holds the world's largest pipe organ. Down the coast in Margate, Lucy the Elephant has stood for well over a century.

Pigeon Forge's sights are mostly built to entertain, such as the half-scale Titanic and the illusion museums. Its one real piece of history is the Old Mill of 1830. For mountain heritage, the log cabins and churches in the national park are worth more than anything on the strip.

Atlantic City stays up all night. Casino bars, lounges and gaming floors never close, and on summer weekends resort nightclubs and pool parties draw crowds from Philadelphia and New York. There are beach bars on the sand too. Away from the resorts the streets feel empty after dark, and midweek and in winter things go quiet.

In Pigeon Forge, evenings mean dinner shows and go-karts, and most things wind down around ten. Drinking is limited to a few sports bars, brewpubs and moonshine tasting rooms, so adults who want a night out drive to Gatlinburg.

This is Pigeon Forge's great strength. The Great Smoky Mountains begin half an hour away. Trails run from the short walk to Laurel Falls up to Mount LeConte, black bears and wild turkey graze in Cades Cove, and the road over Newfound Gap climbs to Clingmans Dome. Spring wildflowers and October colour are the high points of the year.

Atlantic City's nature is flat and gentle: salt marsh full of herons at the Forsythe refuge, kayaking and crabbing in the back bays, and canoe rivers in the Pine Barrens. It is good for a morning, but there are no hills or views.

Atlantic City has the stronger day trips. Philadelphia, with Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, is about an hour and a half away by train. Cape May, about an hour south, is one of the best-preserved Victorian seaside towns in the country. Closer by are Batsto, Smithville and the boardwalks of Ocean City and Wildwood.

From Pigeon Forge, the best full day out is Asheville and the Biltmore Estate, nearly two hours' drive. Knoxville's Market Square and Cherokee's Oconaluftee village are closer. After those, and Gatlinburg next door, there is little else.

Pigeon Forge is built around children. Dollywood has rides, crafts and seasonal festivals, and there are mountain coasters, mini-golf, easy waterfall walks and bear spotting in the park. Large cabins and indoor water-park hotels make group stays simple. The downsides are the car journeys and slow traffic in peak weeks.

In Atlantic City, the beach, the rides on the Steel Pier and a climb inside Lucy keep children happy for a while. But the city is built around casinos open only to adults, and many families choose to stay in alcohol-free Ocean City instead.

Atlantic City is easier without a car, as long as you stay on the island. The Boardwalk is long and level to walk, jitneys run along Pacific Avenue day and night, and trains and buses connect it with Philadelphia. You do need a car for the refuge, the Pine Barrens or Cape May.

Pigeon Forge is a multi-lane strip where you can only walk inside the attraction complexes. The Parkway trolley is slow and does not go up to the cabins, and the only way to reach the park trailheads is by car.

Both towns offer outlet malls with American mid-market brands and plenty of T-shirts and fudge. The difference is what you can take home. In Atlantic City it is saltwater taffy from the Boardwalk. Around Pigeon Forge you will find real mountain crafts: quilts, pottery and stone-ground cornmeal near the Old Mill, and brooms, baskets and woodwork from the studios in the hills above Gatlinburg.

The two cost about the same, and both get pricier at their peak times. In Atlantic City, casino hotels cut their rates midweek and out of summer, and the beach and Boardwalk cost nothing. Weekends in July cost much more, and resort fees and parking add up.

Pigeon Forge's savings come from sharing a big cabin and eating cheap breakfasts. The spending goes on theme park tickets, dinner shows and the car, while walks in the national park cost almost nothing.

The two are close here, but they offer very different shows. Atlantic City books touring headliners: pop and rock acts and comedians in casino arenas, big concerts and boxing in Boardwalk Hall, and free beach concerts in summer. You plan a weekend around a particular date.

Pigeon Forge puts on shows every night in dozens of theatres: country and gospel revues, magic, and dinner spectacles with horses or pirate ships. Dollywood adds bluegrass during the day. Neither town has opera or serious theatre.

Neither town is a place to rest, but each has a quiet side. In Atlantic City it is the casino spas, with saunas and indoor pools, or an off-season walk along an empty Boardwalk by the winter sea. In Pigeon Forge it is a hillside cabin with a porch, a fireplace and a hot tub looking out over the ridges, well away from the neon of the Parkway.