Louisville or Tampa?

These two are about as far apart as it gets. Louisville sits deep inland on a working river with barges and strong currents, and summer swimming means a pool or a drive out to a reservoir lake in the countryside.

Tampa's own bay shore is mostly seawall, but the barrier islands across the bridges have fine white sand and calm Gulf water that is warm for much of the year. Beach days here are a drive away rather than out of the hotel door, and visitors who want the sea every morning often stay on the islands instead.

Both cities eat well on a mid-sized scale, and each has a regional identity worth travelling for. In Louisville, everything revolves around bourbon and the old fashioned, with Southern plates such as the hot brown, burgoo and Derby pie, and the better kitchens cluster in NuLu, the Highlands and Butchertown.

Tampa's table comes from the Cuban, Spanish and Sicilian workers of the Ybor City cigar factories: the pressed Cuban sandwich with salami, deviled crab croquettes and café con leche, with grouper and stone crab from the Gulf. Louisville is better for drinking, Tampa for seafood and a cheap, characterful lunch.

Louisville gives a sightseer more to do. Churchill Downs and its Derby Museum, the Muhammad Ali Center, the Slugger and Frazier museums among Whiskey Row's cast-iron fronts, the Speed Art Museum and the Victorian mansions of Old Louisville all tie back to a well-known story.

Tampa's heritage is smaller and centred on Ybor City's cigar factories and social clubs, plus the minaret-topped Plant hotel and a pair of riverside museums. It is engaging but quickly seen, and art lovers tend to cross the bay to St Petersburg.

Tampa makes for the livelier night. Seventh Avenue in Ybor City has actual dance clubs and a loud weekend crowd, SoHo offers polished cocktail patios, and the craft beer scene is serious. The Gasparilla pirate festival turns the bayfront into a huge party each winter.

Louisville is a bar town rather than a club town: dive bars and patios along Bardstown Road, bourbon bars in NuLu, and some late licences that let a night run on. It only really erupts around the Derby in spring.

Louisville's outdoors is on dry land and Tampa's is on the water, and each repays a day or two in its own way. Louisville has the wooded hills and running loops of Olmsted's Cherokee and Iroquois parks, fossil beds to walk out on at the Falls of the Ohio, proper woodland trails at Bernheim Forest and the vast underground passages of Mammoth Cave, all set in gentle rolling country.

Tampa's appeal is paddling and wildlife in flat subtropical land: kayaks through cypress swamp and mangrove tunnels, manatees gathering near Apollo Beach, alligators at Myakka and the clear turquoise springs around Crystal River. Winter is when this is at its best, just when Louisville's woods are cold and bare, while summer heat pushes Tampa's outings into the early morning.

Louisville has the stronger and more coherent set of outings. Bourbon country around Bardstown, Frankfort and Lawrenceburg is a destination in its own right, and the horse farms and Keeneland near Lexington, Shaker Village and Lincoln's birthplace add real history.

From Tampa, the days out are varied but lighter: the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, the Greek sponge docks at Tarpon Springs, the Ringling estate in Sarasota and Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings in Lakeland. Both regions need a car for nearly every trip.

Tampa is much the better family base. Busch Gardens pairs big coasters with an animal park, the aquarium and ZooTampa fill gentler days, and the shallow Gulf beaches are ideal for small children, with Legoland and Orlando within reach. Summer heat and storms are the main obstacle.

Louisville is easy and unhurried with children, with a good zoo, a hands-on science centre, Kentucky Kingdom's coasters and water park, and underground ziplines at the Mega Cavern. It is enough for a few days, not a week.

Both are firmly car cities with weak buses, and either way most visitors drive or use ride-hailing. Louisville is slightly easier because distances are short and traffic is mild, though it has no rail at all and only downtown and NuLu are walkable.

Tampa has a heritage-style streetcar linking downtown, the Channel District and Ybor City, but the beaches, Busch Gardens and every day trip mean longer drives, and the bridges and interstates slow down at rush hour.

Neither city is a shopping destination, but Tampa has a little more range. It has an upscale mall with luxury and department-store brands, the open-air boutiques of Hyde Park Village, and hand-rolled cigars from the small shops in Ybor City.

Louisville is mostly local and small: design shops in NuLu and vintage, records and antiques along Bardstown Road. Its real souvenir is a rare bottle of bourbon, plus a Derby hat.

Costs are much the same, typical of a mid-sized American city once tax and tip are added, and in both a car is the hidden daily expense. The difference is in timing. Louisville's hotels are moderate for most of the year but soar during Derby week, while Tampa is dearer in its winter and spring high season and cheaper in the steamy summer.

In Louisville, the parks and Old Louisville's streets cost nothing. In Tampa, Cuban bakeries keep lunches cheap, but theme parks quickly add up for families.

The two are evenly matched, each with a solid programme built around one big arts centre. Louisville's Kentucky Center houses its orchestra, opera and ballet, Actors Theatre has long championed new American plays, and bars on Bardstown Road lean towards bluegrass and Americana.

Tampa's Straz Center carries the touring Broadway shows, opera and ballet, the 1926 Tampa Theatre is a lovely place for a film or concert, and Ybor City has the indie and rock rooms.

Louisville has little here beyond hotel spas and a few day spas, which leaves Tampa as the more restful of the two. In Louisville, unwinding means a slow afternoon on a porch in the Highlands or a drive through horse country. For a proper spa break you need to drive about an hour and a half to the old mineral-spring resorts of French Lick and West Baden Springs.

Tampa itself is humid and sprawling, but the barrier islands across the bay move at a slower pace of sunsets and long lunches, and some of the resort spas are substantial. If rest is the point, book a bed on the islands rather than downtown.