Miami Beach or Pigeon Forge?

Here the gap is as wide as it gets. The whole Atlantic side of Miami Beach is pale sand, from the pastel lifeguard huts and crowds of South Beach to the calmer stretches of Mid-Beach and North Beach. The water is warm and usually gentle for most of the year.

Pigeon Forge is hours from any coast. Swimming there means the shore of the Douglas Lake reservoir, boulder pools in the national park streams in summer, or the water park next to Dollywood.

Miami Beach eats better and more widely. It has chef-led dining rooms, seafood, stone crabs in winter and a strong Cuban and South American influence, from croquetas at takeaway windows to Little Havana across the causeway. Avoid the tourist menus on Ocean Drive.

In Pigeon Forge the food is about big portions and comfort: pancake breakfasts, Southern buffets, barbecue and chains along the Parkway, with moonshine tastings and fudge from around the Old Mill as the local touches. For more ambitious cooking you drive to Knoxville or Asheville.

Neither is a great museum city, but Miami Beach has a real sight in its Art Deco Historic District. Its hundreds of pastel 1930s hotels make a walk along Ocean Drive and Collins Avenue worthwhile on its own, and the Wolfsonian, the Bass and the Holocaust Memorial add to it.

The sights in Pigeon Forge are built for entertainment, like the half-scale Titanic and the illusion museums. Its one genuinely historic building is the Old Mill of 1830. For older heritage you go to the log cabins and churches in the national park.

For going out, Miami Beach is in another league. The South Beach clubs bring in guest DJs and stay open until dawn, afternoon pool parties fill the hotel courtyards, and there are quieter cocktail bars in Sunset Harbour. Dress codes and door policies come with all of this.

Pigeon Forge winds down around ten. Evenings are for dinner shows and the lit-up go-kart tracks. A drink means a sports bar, a brewpub or a moonshine tasting room, and many adults simply go back to the cabin's hot tub.

This is where Pigeon Forge clearly comes out ahead. Half an hour away, the Great Smoky Mountains rise to more than 2,000m. There are waterfall walks such as Laurel Falls, the climb to Mount LeConte, and bears and deer in Cades Cove, with spring wildflowers and the October colours as the high points.

Miami Beach is flat and built up, so time outdoors happens on the water: paddleboarding on the bay, snorkelling and diving on the reefs and wrecks offshore, and the mangrove trails at Oleta River. The Everglades and Biscayne National Park add wetlands and reefs, but there is no hiking.

Miami Beach has the stronger set of outings, mainly because mainland Miami is just across the bay, with Little Havana, the Wynwood murals, Vizcaya and Coral Gables. Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Key Largo are all within about an hour and a half by car.

From Pigeon Forge the best trips are to Asheville for the Biltmore Estate, to Market Square in Knoxville and to Cherokee over Newfound Gap. They are good trips, but there are fewer of them, and every one needs the car.

Pigeon Forge is built for children in a way Miami Beach is not. Dollywood and its water park, the mountain coasters, the mini-golf and the big cabins for groups make a full week easy. The easy waterfall walks and bear spotting in the national park are a break from the Parkway.

Miami Beach does one thing for families very well: a lifeguarded beach with warm, gentle water, best reached from Mid-Beach or North Beach. The zoo and science museum are on the mainland, and South Beach is best avoided with children on party weekends.

Miami Beach is far easier without a car. South Beach is flat and compact, so you can walk between the sand, the Art Deco streets and Lincoln Road, and free trolleys and bike share cover the rest of the island. Leaving the island is harder, though: buses get stuck on the causeways, so you rely on ride-hailing or a hire car.

Pigeon Forge is a multi-lane strip where almost everyone drives. The Parkway trolley is slow and does not reach the hillside cabins, the trailheads need a car, and traffic crawls in summer, in October and through the Christmas weeks.

Miami Beach covers the luxury end. Bal Harbour gathers the big European fashion and jewellery houses, and Lincoln Road makes a pleasant evening stroll past international chains, though neither has anything local.

Pigeon Forge has outlets and souvenirs, with American mid-market brands along the Parkway and towards Sevierville. Where it does better is crafts: quilts and pottery around the Old Mill, and brooms, baskets and woodwork from the studios above Gatlinburg.

Pigeon Forge costs noticeably less. There are plenty of motel rooms and rental cabins, sharing a cabin between families brings the cost per person down, and the breakfast houses and buffets are cheap. Theme park tickets, dinner shows and the car still add up.

Miami Beach is expensive, with high oceanfront rates in the winter peak, resort fees, parking charges and costly South Beach cocktails. Hotels on the side streets or in North Beach and the summer low season help, and the beach itself is free.

Miami Beach has the more serious arts. The New World Symphony plays in its Frank Gehry hall, sometimes with concerts projected onto the outside wall for people on the lawn. Miami City Ballet is based here, and the Jackie Gleason Theater stages touring shows, mostly from autumn to spring.

Pigeon Forge puts on shows every night, but they are all one style: country and gospel revues, comedy, magic and dinner shows with horses or pirate ships, plus bluegrass at Dollywood. The tone is broad and family-friendly, and the nearest orchestra or opera is in Knoxville.

Miami Beach is better for a restful stay. It has large resort spas with saunas, steam rooms and plunge pools, sunrise yoga on the sand, and calm pool days in Mid-Beach and towards Surfside, away from the noise of South Beach.

Pigeon Forge has only a few spas. Its kind of rest is a wooded hillside cabin with a porch, a fireplace and a private hot tub looking out over the ridges, so book high up and well away from the Parkway.