Branson or Rapid City?

Neither city has a sea, but Branson's lake swimming is the better of the two. Table Rock Lake warms through a season from June into early September, with public swim areas on sand brought in for the purpose and rented pontoons for anchoring in a quiet cove. Skip Lake Taneycomo in town, which stays cold all year.

Rapid City's swims are in small pine-ringed lakes such as Sylvan Lake and Pactola Reservoir. The water is cooler, the shores are gravel or small patches of sand, and a dip there is a break on a scenic drive rather than a day out in itself.

Both cities feed you heartily rather than memorably. Branson's eating is built around volume and the show schedule: buffets, fried chicken, catfish and set dinner-theatre menus, with chains along Highway 76. Its best tastes are Ozark ones, skillet cooking, fresh trout and fudge.

Rapid City has a little more character on the plate. Bison steaks, chislic and Indian tacos on Lakota fry bread are truly regional, and the blocks around Main Street add brewpubs, coffee houses and a few more ambitious kitchens. Out in the hills there are wineries and distillers too.

Branson's sights are built for amusement: wax museums, the museum shaped like an ocean liner's bow and other novelty galleries. Its only real heritage is Ozark folk craft at the 1880s-themed park and the eclectic Ralph Foster Museum.

Rapid City has more substance, if not a great deal. The Journey Museum traces the Black Hills from geology to Lakota history and the gold rush, and the School of Mines holds fine Badlands fossils. A walk past the bronze presidents on downtown corners makes a pleasant hour.

Neither town is built for going out, but Branson is the quieter. The evening there is the show itself, and once the theatres empty the town goes to bed, apart from a few brewpubs and hotel lounges by the lakefront.

Rapid City at least has a downtown to go out in. Around Main Street Square there are brewpubs, sports bars and country-music bars, friendly but mostly closed before midnight. The exception is early August, when the Sturgis motorcycle rally nearby keeps the bars loud and late.

Branson's Ozark setting is gentle: wooded ridges, limestone bluffs and Table Rock Lake for boating, kayaking and bass fishing, with good walks in Hercules Glades and the Buffalo National River two hours south.

Rapid City's outdoors are on another scale. The granite spires and ponderosa forest of the Black Hills start at the edge of town, and Custer State Park has a free-roaming bison herd. Add Wind Cave and Jewel Cave, the Badlands an hour east and climbing in the Needles, and it is a far stronger base for hiking, wildlife and scenic roads.

Rapid City has the outings people cross the country for. Mount Rushmore is about half an hour away, with the Crazy Horse Memorial beyond it, and the gold-rush town of Deadwood and the Mammoth Site at Hot Springs make further good days out.

Branson's list is shorter and quieter. The highlights are Victorian Eureka Springs about an hour south and the Crystal Bridges art museum in Bentonville. They make an enjoyable couple of days out, but there is no landmark on Rushmore's scale.

Branson is designed around children, and that is its edge. The Ozark theme park, water parks, the aquarium, the showboat on Table Rock Lake, go-karts and dinner shows with horses and stunts are all close together, so the days take little planning.

Rapid City is a long-standing family road-trip destination too, with the reptile park, the drive-through bear park, Storybook Island and bison stopping traffic in Custer State Park. The catch is distance, since many of its best family days involve hours in the car.

Both are car towns, and neither has public transport that is much use to a visitor. In Branson the trouble is the strip itself. Theatres and hotels are spread over several hilly kilometres of Highway 76, traffic crawls on show evenings and pavements are patchy, so locals use the colour-coded back roads instead. Only Branson Landing and the small old downtown are pleasant on foot. Most visitors arrive with their own car, and those who fly in land at Springfield and hire one there.

Rapid City is easier to drive. Downtown is compact enough to walk, traffic is light and parking is simple, and the roads through the hills are part of the pleasure, despite their tight tunnels and hairpins. For anyone without a car, seasonal tour buses reach the main sights.

Branson offers more choice. Branson Landing on Lake Taneycomo has mainstream American stores, outlet malls line the strip, and Ozark glass, pottery, quilts and ironwork are often made in front of you at the craft workshops.

Rapid City's shopping is smaller but has a stronger regional identity. Its specialities are Black Hills gold jewellery with grape-leaf designs, plus Lakota quillwork, beadwork and star quilts in downtown galleries, and Western boots and hats.

The two cost about the same overall, but the money goes in different places. In Branson the rooms are cheap and the fun is not: show tickets, theme park entry and boat hire add up over a week, though show-and-hotel packages can soften the bill.

In Rapid City many sights are free, such as the presidents' statues and Dinosaur Park, but park fees and fuel for long drives mount up. Rooms get expensive at the summer peak and especially in rally week, so late spring and early autumn are the times to save.

This is Branson's reason to exist. Dozens of theatres stage country, bluegrass, gospel quartets, tribute acts, magicians and large biblical productions with live animals from morning to night for most of the year, and Christmas brings a full programme of seasonal shows. The style is wholesome and the range narrow, but the musicianship is often good.

Rapid City offers a symphony season, touring concerts and Broadway shows at the civic centre, and summer plays at the playhouse in Custer State Park. Its most distinctive performance is the large autumn powwow, something Branson has nothing like.

Neither city is much of a place for pampering, and the difference is in the setting. Branson's calm comes from lodge resorts with full spas on Table Rock Lake, or a cabin on a wooded cove, well away from the neon of the strip.

Rapid City has a real bathing tradition within reach. At Hot Springs, an hour south, a historic indoor pool fed by warm natural springs has drawn bathers since the 1890s, and quiet cabins in the hills fill in the rest.