Gatlinburg or New York?

Gatlinburg is hundreds of kilometres from the sea, so in summer swimming means cold river pools, tubing on the Little River near Townsend or a lakeshore at Douglas Lake. The river pools need care after rain.

New York has real Atlantic beaches at the end of the subway lines. Coney Island has its boardwalk and old rides, and the Rockaways have open sand and surfers. The water is only warm enough in high summer, and the beaches get crowded, but a proper sea swim is possible here and impossible in the mountains.

Gatlinburg feeds a resort crowd. Expect pancake houses, barbecue and Southern comfort food along the Parkway, with fudge shops and moonshine tasting rooms in between. Good Appalachian cooking, such as trout, country ham and stack cake, exists but is scattered.

New York is one of the great places to eat anywhere. Each cuisine is cooked by the community that brought it, in neighbourhoods from Flushing to Arthur Avenue, and above that sits a very deep fine-dining scene. Even the cheap classics, the slice, the bagel and the deli sandwich, are worth the trip.

Gatlinburg has almost no sightseeing in the usual sense. Its heritage is the Arts and Crafts Community's loop of working studios, plus the log cabins, mills and churches out at Cades Cove and the Roaring Fork. You visit these as outings into the park.

New York could fill weeks with the Met, MoMA, the Guggenheim and the Natural History museum alone. It also has the landmarks everyone knows, from the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island to Grand Central. Its history is nineteenth and twentieth century, but there is a great deal of it.

After dark in Gatlinburg, people stroll the lit Parkway, sip moonshine in tasting rooms and go back to the cabin hot tub. The strip is quiet by late night, and there are effectively no clubs.

New York is the opposite. There are dive bars and speakeasy-style cocktail rooms in the East Village, wine bars in the West Village, skyline rooftops and warehouse parties in Williamsburg and Bushwick that run past dawn, and trains run all night to get you home.

This is where Gatlinburg comes into its own. It is the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains, with hardwood forest, waterfall trails, the climb by Alum Cave to Mount LeConte and the road up towards Clingmans Dome. Black bears and Cades Cove's deer are everyday sights. The main drawback is traffic on the popular roads in leaf season.

New York's nature is mostly designed: Central Park, Prospect Park and the High Line, plus birdwatching at Jamaica Bay. For a real climb you take the train up the Hudson to Breakneck Ridge, which is a good day out but no match for living next to a national park.

New York has the wider choice, and much of it is reachable by train. Philadelphia's colonial old town, Princeton and New Haven are all within easy reach, and so are the Hudson Valley estates, Dia Beacon and Storm King's sculpture park.

From Gatlinburg, the best outings are Asheville and the Biltmore Estate, and the drive over Newfound Gap to Cherokee for the Museum of the Cherokee Indian. Knoxville and Bryson City's heritage railway are also close. After those, the list thins out, and you'll need a car for every trip.

Gatlinburg is designed around children. The Parkway has an aquarium, mini golf, alpine coasters and treetop bridges reached by chairlift. Dollywood is a short drive away, and there are easy creek walks and junior ranger badges in the park. Roomy cabins with games rooms make group stays simple, though high-season queues and traffic test patience.

New York has outstanding individual draws, including the dinosaur halls, the Bronx Zoo and the free Staten Island Ferry. Even so, stairs-only subway stations, small hotel rooms and Midtown crowds make it more tiring with young children.

New York needs no car at all. Manhattan's grid is easy to walk, and the subway runs around the clock across four boroughs, with ferries and Citi Bike filling the gaps. The stairs, the summer heat underground and the airport journeys are the main irritations.

Gatlinburg's downtown strip is walkable and served by a trolley out to Pigeon Forge. However, most cabins sit up steep hillside roads, and the park and day trips all need a car. In October and at weekends, that often means slow queues on the Parkway.

New York is one of the world's great shopping cities. It has Fifth Avenue flagships, Madison Avenue luxury and the historic department stores, plus SoHo design shops, Brooklyn vintage and specialist shops for books, records and sneakers.

Gatlinburg's Parkway mostly sells fudge, T-shirts and novelty knives. The real find is the Arts and Crafts Community, where you can buy quilts, pottery and brooms directly from the people who make them. For brand names, there are the outlet malls in Pigeon Forge.

Gatlinburg is noticeably easier on the wallet. Shared cabins and older motels are good value, especially midweek and in winter, and the national park costs little to enjoy. The bills come from the Parkway attractions and Dollywood, and rates rise in October, at Thanksgiving and over Christmas and New Year.

New York is among the most expensive cities to visit. Hotel rooms are small and costly, every meal carries tax and a tip, and tickets are steep. Pizza slices, Queens restaurants, free parks and ferries, and a room in Brooklyn or New Jersey help, but only up to a point.

New York is the obvious choice for live performance. It has Broadway and Off-Broadway, the Metropolitan Opera, the Philharmonic and City Ballet at Lincoln Center, and Carnegie Hall. Add jazz in Village basements and Harlem, gospel on Sundays and free Shakespeare in the parks in summer.

Gatlinburg's version is bluegrass in the moonshine rooms and the dinner shows, country revues and magic acts of nearby Pigeon Forge. They are cheerful family evenings, and Dollywood keeps mountain music alive, but there is nothing for opera or theatre lovers.

Neither place is a spa destination, but New York is slightly ahead for actual bathing. It has the old Russian and Turkish bathhouse in the East Village, the banyas of Brighton Beach and large Korean-style spas in Queens. You'll have to escape the city's noise to enjoy them.

Gatlinburg relaxes you in a different way. It has few spas, but a hillside cabin with a hot tub, a rocking chair and mist over the ridges is deeply restful, as long as you stay above the noisy Parkway rather than on it.