Gatlinburg or Williamsburg, Virginia?

Neither town is a beach destination, but Williamsburg at least puts real salt water within easy reach. The calm sand at Yorktown is about 20 minutes away, Buckroe Beach looks onto the Chesapeake Bay, and the Atlantic beaches of Virginia Beach make a single beach day in summer easy to add.

Gatlinburg is hundreds of kilometres from any coast. Summer swimming there means wading in cold mountain streams, tubing on the Little River near Townsend or a lakeshore at Douglas Lake, and the river pools can run fast after rain.

Williamsburg eats a little better, mainly because its local food has more to it: country ham biscuits, peanut soup, Chesapeake crab cakes and oysters, plus a few bistros and wine bars around Merchants Square and the college.

Gatlinburg's Parkway is mostly pancake houses, barbecue and volume-cooking family restaurants, with moonshine tastings and fudge shops as the local flavour. Good Appalachian cooking such as trout and stack cake exists but is scattered, and both towns have their strips of pancake houses and chains for the theme-park crowds.

This is where the two towns differ most. Williamsburg is effectively a whole town of history: the restored colonial capital along Duke of Gloucester Street, the Governor's Palace, Bruton Parish Church and the Wren Building, with costumed tradespeople at work and serious collections of American folk and decorative art.

Gatlinburg's town centre is attractions and motels, and its heritage lives in the Great Smoky Arts and Crafts Community studios and in the old cabins, mills and churches out at Cades Cove and along the Roaring Fork. Those are rewarding drives, but they make a half-day outing rather than a reason to come.

Both towns go quiet early, so neither suits a night out. Gatlinburg's evenings are a stroll along the lit Parkway, moonshine tasting rooms and a few rooftop and brewery terraces, then back to the cabin hot tub. Williamsburg trades that for a candlelit tavern dinner or ghost walk, with student pubs near the college livelier in term time.

Gatlinburg has the far stronger outdoors, as the front door of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Within minutes you are among hardwood forest and mountain streams, with Laurel Falls, Alum Cave and Clingmans Dome near 2,025m, black bears and elk in the valleys, and rafting on the Pigeon River. The trade-off is traffic at popular trailheads in leaf season.

Williamsburg's Tidewater countryside is flat and gentle: marsh, tidal creeks and river estuaries. Its pleasures are quieter ones, like cycling the Colonial Parkway or the Virginia Capital Trail and kayaking the Chickahominy past ospreys and bald eagles, but there are no hills to climb.

Williamsburg has the more useful set of outings because its partner sites are so close. Jamestown and Yorktown are each under half an hour away, the James River plantations line Route 5, and Richmond, Norfolk and Monticello stretch the range further.

Gatlinburg's best day out is Asheville and the Biltmore Estate, about an hour and a half away, with Cherokee and its museum over Newfound Gap and Knoxville about an hour off. Past those and Pigeon Forge, the options thin out quickly.

Both are classic family vacation towns, built on a theme park nearby and plenty to keep children busy. Gatlinburg mixes Parkway attractions, an aquarium, alpine coasters and Dollywood with easy waterfall walks, creek wading and bears seen from the car.

Williamsburg pairs Busch Gardens and Water Country USA with history children can touch: musket firings, fife-and-drum parades and replica ships at Jamestown. The main difference is that Williamsburg's history teaches as it entertains, while Gatlinburg is mostly about nature and amusements.

Both towns have a small walkable core and need a car for everything else. Gatlinburg's Parkway strip has a trolley out to Pigeon Forge, but cabins sit up steep, winding roads and park traffic can stall in October. Williamsburg's Historic Area is flat and car-free by day, and an Amtrak station sits near the centre, though the sights beyond are spread along highways.

Williamsburg's shopping is a touch more rewarding, with colonial-style shops selling pewter, silver and reproduction furniture, brick-fronted Merchants Square and a large outlet centre on Richmond Road.

Gatlinburg's Parkway is mostly souvenirs, candy kitchens and novelty outlets. Its real strength is the Arts and Crafts Community loop, where you buy quilts, brooms and pottery straight from the maker's studio. Pigeon Forge supplies the outlet brands.

Costs are broadly similar, and the difference lies in where the money goes. In Gatlinburg a big cabin shared between families can be good value and the national park costs little to enjoy, but rates jump in October and over Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year.

In Williamsburg rooms are easy to find at fair prices outside the peak vacation weeks. The admission fees for the colonial sites and theme parks add up quickly, so combination passes help.

Neither offers opera or serious theatre, but the shows differ in kind. Gatlinburg leans on mountain music, with bluegrass in the tasting rooms and dinner shows and gospel revues in Pigeon Forge. Williamsburg's performances are period pieces, such as candlelit eighteenth-century recitals and fife-and-drum corps, plus college concerts in term time.

Neither has a bathing tradition, and both offer only a few resort spas. The calm comes from different places. In Gatlinburg it is a secluded hillside cabin with a hot tub above misty ridges. In Williamsburg it is a riverside golf resort, an early walk across empty colonial greens or a slow drive down the Colonial Parkway.