Fort Myers or Pigeon Forge?

On beaches the gap is total. From Fort Myers you can easily drive to a run of barrier-island beaches. Fort Myers Beach has a long, wide strip of sand, Lovers Key and Bonita are quieter, and Sanibel and Captiva are known for shelling. All of them face calm, shallow Gulf water that is easy for children.

Pigeon Forge has no sea at all. Swimming there means Douglas Lake in summer, the boulder pools of the mountain streams in the national park, or the water park beside Dollywood.

Neither city is a food destination, but Fort Myers gives you more to enjoy. It has grouper sandwiches, peel-and-eat shrimp and stone crab eaten on waterfront decks at sunset, plus a few independent restaurants and breweries in the River District.

Pigeon Forge eats heavier and plainer, with pancake houses, Southern buffets and barbecue along the Parkway. Its one local speciality is moonshine tastings, and anyone who wants serious cooking drives to Knoxville or Asheville.

Fort Myers has one sight of real substance, the Edison and Ford Winter Estates, with the two men's riverside homes, laboratory and gardens. It also has palm-lined McGregor Boulevard and a few early twentieth-century brick streets downtown.

Pigeon Forge's sights are built for entertainment, such as the half-scale Titanic replica and the illusion museums. Its one genuine piece of history is the Old Mill of 1830. For more, you go to the log cabins and churches in the national park.

Neither will keep you out late, but Fort Myers at least has bars worth going to. There are rooftop and cocktail bars and a monthly art walk in the River District, and beach bars with sunset crowds around the pier on Fort Myers Beach.

In Pigeon Forge, evenings are spent at go-kart tracks and lit-up attraction complexes that quieten down around ten. Adults who want a drink usually drive to Gatlinburg or stay in with the cabin's hot tub.

Fort Myers is flat, watery country, and its strength is wildlife. You can see spoonbills and herons at Ding Darling, walk the cypress boardwalks at Corkscrew Swamp, watch manatees gather in winter and kayak through mangrove tunnels on the Great Calusa Blueway.

Pigeon Forge has the grander outdoors. Half an hour away the Great Smoky Mountains rise above 2,000m, with trails from Laurel Falls to Mount LeConte, the Appalachian Trail along the crest and black bears easy to spot in Cades Cove. These are proper mountain days that the Gulf coast cannot match.

Both make a fair base for outings, and you need a car in both. From Fort Myers the trips follow the coast: polished Naples, the island villages of Sanibel, Captiva and Boca Grande, the Ringling museum and Ca' d'Zan in Sarasota, and Everglades City for the Ten Thousand Islands.

From Pigeon Forge you get mountain and town days instead. There are craft studios around Gatlinburg, Market Square in Knoxville and Cherokee across Newfound Gap. The best of them is Asheville, with the Biltmore Estate and its art deco downtown.

Fort Myers is an easy beach vacation for young children, with surf-free water, shell hunting on Sanibel, dolphins and manatees. It has no big theme park, zoo or aquarium, though.

Pigeon Forge exists for families. Dollywood, with its coasters, crafts and seasonal festivals, is the centre of a strip of go-karts, mini-golf, mountain coasters and zip lines, and the aquarium in Gatlinburg is twenty minutes away. Large cabins and indoor water-park hotels are built for groups, and older children in particular will find far more to do here.

Both need a car, and both have bad seasonal traffic. Fort Myers is a spread-out county where the worst jams build on the bridges to the beaches and Sanibel in winter. Only the walkable River District and the Fort Myers Beach trolley let you leave the car behind.

Pigeon Forge puts everything along one long Parkway. A slow trolley runs to Gatlinburg but not to the hillside cabins or the park trailheads, and traffic queues in summer, in October and through the Christmas weeks.

Browsing in Fort Myers means island shops: galleries, gift stores and shell shops along Periwinkle Way on Sanibel and in the Captiva villages, plus a few independent stores in the River District. Beyond those, it is open-air centres and an outlet mall on the way to Estero.

Pigeon Forge also has big outlet centres along the Parkway, but its more interesting buys are mountain crafts. You'll find quilts, pottery and stone-ground cornmeal at the Old Mill, and broom, basket and leather studios in the hills above Gatlinburg.

Fort Myers is costly in its winter high season, when beachfront rooms on Fort Myers Beach and Sanibel book up early. Staying inland or coming in summer brings costs down, but the car, beach parking and the Sanibel causeway fee add up.

Pigeon Forge is the cheaper stay. Thousands of motel rooms and cabins keep lodging reasonable outside the peak periods, a cabin shared between families works out cheaply per person, and buffets cost little. The money goes on theme park days and dinner shows instead.

Fort Myers has the smaller live scene, but a more traditional one. Through the winter you can see touring Broadway musicals at the Barbara B. Mann hall, a repertory company in a restored 1908 theatre and a regional symphony orchestra. In summer most of that stops, and live music comes down to bands in beach and downtown bars.

Pigeon Forge puts on far more, and its season runs through most of the year. Dozens of Parkway theatres stage country and gospel revues, Southern comedy, magic and dinner shows with horses or pirate ships, and Dollywood has bluegrass and gospel on several stages through the day. It is all broad family entertainment, so for orchestral music or serious drama you drive to Knoxville.

Fort Myers is the easier place to slow down, especially on Sanibel and Captiva. Low buildings, bike paths, early nights, long walks along the water and a resort pool set an unhurried pace, and a massage there means the resort spa.

Pigeon Forge finds its calm in the hillside cabins, with porches, fireplaces and private hot tubs looking out over the ridges. The Parkway below is all neon and traffic, so you need to book high up and away from the strip to find that peace.