Gulf Shores or Pigeon Forge?

There is no real contest here. Gulf Shores sits on miles of squeaky white quartz sand running from Fort Morgan to the Florida line, with dune-backed stretches in Gulf State Park. In summer the water is warm enough for long swims. Watch the flags for rip currents.

Pigeon Forge is in the Tennessee foothills, so swimming means Douglas Lake, boulder pools in the mountain streams, the Dollywood water park or the hotel pool. These are pleasant on a hot day but are not a reason to go.

Neither town is a place to travel to for its cooking, but you eat better in Gulf Shores. Its strength is fresh Gulf seafood, served at open-air shacks with water views: Royal Red shrimp, chargrilled oysters and gumbo with a Louisiana accent. With a condo kitchen you can also buy shrimp at a seafood market and cook it yourself.

Pigeon Forge runs on pancake houses, Southern buffets, barbecue and chains along the Parkway. The food is generous and filling but rarely regional. Moonshine tastings and fudge are its local touches, and for a serious meal you drive to Knoxville or Asheville.

Both are resort towns with little history of their own, and neither suits a museum trip. Gulf Shores has one serious sight, Fort Morgan, the brick star fort that saw the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864. Pigeon Forge has its working Old Mill of 1830 alongside built attractions such as the half-scale Titanic.

Where they differ is the kind of heritage. The coast gives you Civil War history in a single morning. The mountains give you Appalachian heritage, from Dollywood's craft workshops to the log cabins and churches inside the national park.

Gulf Shores has the livelier evenings, though they centre on beach bars rather than clubs. Open-air decks with sand underfoot stay busy late in summer, and the famous roadhouse on the state line keeps going well into the night. Spring break brings a younger crowd.

Pigeon Forge goes to bed earlier. Its evenings are go-karts, dinner shows and lit-up attractions until about ten, plus a few brewpubs and moonshine tasting rooms. Adults who want a proper drink often head to Gatlinburg.

Pigeon Forge has by far the bigger landscape. Half an hour away, the Great Smoky Mountains rise to more than 2,000m. You get waterfall walks, the Appalachian Trail along the crest, bears and deer in Cades Cove, spring wildflowers and October colour.

Gulf Shores is flat and watery instead. You can cycle the paved trails of Gulf State Park, watch migrating birds at the western end of the peninsula, go deep-sea fishing or on dolphin cruises, and kayak in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. It is rewarding on the water but has no hills to climb.

Gulf Shores has a slightly better choice of outings within an hour. There is historic Mobile with its ironwork balconies and the USS Alabama, bayside Fairhope, Pensacola's naval aviation museum, and the car ferry across the bay to Dauphin Island. These are pleasant outings rather than famous names.

Pigeon Forge has Gatlinburg and Knoxville close by and Cherokee over Newfound Gap. Its best outing, Asheville and the Biltmore Estate, makes for a long day on the interstate, and after that the list thins out.

Both towns are built around families, so the choice comes down to the kind of fun. Gulf Shores means a slow beach week from a condo with a pool. A water park, a small zoo and the Ferris wheel at Orange Beach cover hot or wet afternoons, and children need watching in the surf because of rip currents.

Pigeon Forge is busier, and more of it needs tickets. There is Dollywood with its coasters and seasonal festivals, plus mountain coasters, zip lines and go-karts. The aquarium is in Gatlinburg, and the park offers easy bear-spotting. Expect more traffic between stops.

You need a car in either place. Gulf Shores stretches for miles along one beach road, bikes are useful mainly inside Gulf State Park, and the bridges clog on summer weekends.

Pigeon Forge has the small advantage of a Parkway trolley that runs on to Gatlinburg. It is slow, though, misses the hillside cabins and never reaches the national park trailheads.

Pigeon Forge gives shoppers more to do. Big outlet centres line the Parkway towards Sevierville. The Old Mill area and the craft studios above Gatlinburg sell pottery, quilts, baskets and woodwork made in the mountains.

Gulf Shores is mostly beachwear emporiums, surf and fishing shops and a few boutiques at Orange Beach. The Foley outlet mall is the standard rainy-day trip. Neither town has fashion or luxury shopping.

Costs are close in the two towns, and both rise and fall sharply with the season. In Gulf Shores, beachfront condos are dear in June and July but drop sharply in winter. The beach and the park trails are free.

Pigeon Forge works out cheapest when families share a big cabin, and its breakfast houses and buffets are inexpensive. Theme-park days and dinner shows push up what a family spends, though. Its peak periods are summer, October and the Christmas weeks.

Pigeon Forge has far more live entertainment. Dozens of theatres on the Parkway put on country and gospel revues, comedy, magic and dinner shows every night. Dollywood adds bluegrass and Appalachian music through the day. All of it is broad family entertainment, with no classical side.

Gulf Shores has bands and singer-songwriters on beach-bar stages, and a November songwriters' festival at the state-line roadhouse. In the warmer months, touring country and rock acts play the Orange Beach amphitheatre. For orchestral music or theatre, you go to Mobile, about an hour away, or from Pigeon Forge to Knoxville, which is nearer.

Neither town has thermal baths or a real spa culture, only a handful of resort and day spas. Relaxation comes from the setting. In Gulf Shores it is quiet off-season weeks and sunsets over the Gulf from a condo balcony. In Pigeon Forge it is a wooded hillside cabin with a porch, a fireplace and a private hot tub looking over the ridges, well away from the neon of the Parkway.