Bethany Beach or Nashville?

This is Bethany Beach's category. A wide band of pale sand fronts the whole town, with lifeguards in summer and moderate surf. The dunes of Delaware Seashore State Park and the quieter sand at Fenwick Island are a short drive away, and the Inland Bays give small children calmer water.

Nashville is landlocked. The nearest thing to a beach day is a small swimming area at Percy Priest or Old Hickory Lake, where locals mostly go out on pontoon boats.

Bethany Beach eats like a seaside resort: blue crabs cracked at picnic tables, fried clams and boardwalk fries. Many places close out of season, and anyone wanting more choice drives to Rehoboth Beach.

Nashville has a real local cuisine. There is fiery hot chicken, meat-and-three cafeterias, barbecue and Tennessee whiskey, and chef-led kitchens in East Nashville and Germantown. The Kurdish, Mexican and Vietnamese places on Nolensville Pike add variety you will not find on the Delaware shore.

There is very little to visit in Bethany Beach. You have the carved totem pole, a small history collection about its church-camp beginnings and the wartime watchtowers along the shore.

Nashville gives you several full days. The Country Music Hall of Fame and the National Museum of African American Music tell the story of American music, the Ryman is worth a daytime tour, and the Parthenon replica and Frist Art Museum add art. The Hermitage and Belle Meade deal with the region's harder history.

The Quiet Resort lives up to its name. An evening is a boardwalk stroll and an early night, and anyone who wants a bar crowd drives to Dewey Beach or Ocean City.

Nashville is one of the great going-out cities in the United States. Lower Broadway's honky-tonks have a band on every floor until the small hours, and East Nashville and Midtown offer quieter dive bars and cocktail lounges. The nights centre on live bands and drinks, not DJs and dance floors.

Both give you gentle outdoor time rather than anything demanding, but the landscapes are very different. Bethany's is coastal and watery: dunes, salt marsh, kayaking on the Inland Bays, surf fishing at Indian River Inlet, and the wild ponies of Assateague less than an hour south.

Nashville's is inland and wooded. You can walk among the deer at Radnor Lake, take forest trails in the Warner Parks, paddle the Harpeth River or cycle the Natchez Trace Parkway. Its best seasons are spring flowers and autumn leaf colour, while Bethany's outdoors belongs to summer.

Nashville has a little more to offer beyond the city. Franklin's preserved Main Street and Civil War battlefields are half an hour away, Leiper's Fork and the Stones River battlefield are close too, and Tennessee whiskey distilleries and Chattanooga's riverfront are within a long day.

Bethany's outings are mostly about the coast. You can visit historic Lewes, take the ferry across Delaware Bay to Victorian Cape May, or go to Chincoteague's island village and the Victorian main street of Berlin. These are pleasant towns rather than major sights.

Bethany Beach is designed for families. It has a guarded beach, a small safe town you can cycle around, crabbing off docks and free bandstand evenings on summer nights. Mini-golf and water parks are along the coast road.

Nashville has the bigger attractions: the Zoo at Grassmere, the Adventure Science Center's planetarium and the Lane Motor Museum. Getting between them means a lot of driving, though, and Lower Broadway is loud adult territory.

Both work on foot in a small core and need a car for everything else. In Bethany that core is the whole town, and many visitors walk or cycle from rental to sand and leave the car parked all week. A seasonal coast bus links the neighbouring resorts.

In Nashville the walkable part is downtown, covering Broadway, the Ryman, the Gulch and the pedestrian bridge. The Opry, the Hermitage and neighbourhoods like 12 South need ride-hailing or a hire car, and the interstates jam at rush hour.

Nashville has more worth shopping for. Boots, hats and rhinestone shirts line Lower Broadway, there are good guitar shops and letterpress concert posters, and 12 South and East Nashville have independent boutiques and record shops.

Bethany's own shopping is a short row of surf and gift shops. The real draw is the outlet malls outside Rehoboth Beach, where Delaware's lack of sales tax brings in bargain hunters.

Neither is cheap, but the costs come in different forms. In Bethany it is the weekly beach-house rental in July and August. Prices fall a long way in June and September, and cooking for yourself and free beach access keep the rest manageable.

In Nashville it is weekend hotel rates, big-city restaurant bills and ride-hailing. Much of the live music on Broadway is free, and staying midweek or outside downtown helps.

For live performance the gap is enormous. Bethany offers free summer concerts at the boardwalk bandstand, with families on blankets, and has no theatre or concert hall of its own.

Nashville has the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman's famous acoustics, songwriter nights where the writers play their own hits, bluegrass and Americana clubs, and bands in the honky-tonks from late morning. The symphony, ballet and opera add the classical side.

Neither place has a spa tradition, but Bethany is the better place to switch off. Its leafy residential streets and evening boardwalk are calm, and outside summer the town is almost silent, which suits reading and long walks.

Nashville's centre runs on noise and late nights. A quieter stay is possible in Belmont or Hillsboro, but most visitors come to stay out late, not to rest.