Milwaukee or Pigeon Forge?

Neither is a beach destination, but Milwaukee at least has a real shoreline. Bradford Beach sits below the East Side bluffs, with volleyball courts and cabanas on the fresh water of Lake Michigan. The lake stays cool, though, and plenty of people only paddle.

Pigeon Forge is far inland in the Tennessee foothills. Swimming here means the water park beside Dollywood, hotel pools, the reservoir shore at Douglas Lake, or wading among the boulders in national park streams.

Milwaukee has a real local food culture, built by German, Polish and Serbian immigrants. There are Friday fish fries in taverns and church halls, frozen custard, cheese curds and wood-panelled supper clubs. On top of that come craft taprooms in Walker's Point, grazing at the Public Market and good Mexican cooking on the South Side.

Pigeon Forge eats big and plain. Expect pancake houses, Southern buffets, barbecue and national chains along the Parkway, with moonshine tastings as the only local touch. For serious Appalachian cooking you have to drive to Knoxville or Asheville.

Milwaukee has genuine institutions to fill two or three days. The Calatrava-designed Art Museum on the lake and the Harley-Davidson Museum in the Menomonee Valley lead the list. The Pabst Mansion, the domed Basilica of St Josaphat and the cream-brick warehouses of the Third Ward add the city's brewing-era history.

Pigeon Forge offers attractions rather than heritage: a half-scale Titanic, illusion museums and car collections. The 1830 Old Mill and Dollywood's craft workshops are the real history. For anything deeper, the log cabins and churches inside the national park serve better.

The two places spend their evenings in opposite ways. Milwaukee is a drinking town, and its best night out is the plain neighbourhood tavern, where regulars have held the same stools for years under old brewery signs. When you want more choice, Water Street is loud with students and sports fans, Brady Street runs from scruffy dives to careful cocktails, and Walker's Point and the Third Ward have the craft-beer and wine bars and the city's gay scene. There is little dancing. The city is liveliest on summer nights on patios and in beer gardens, and the scene moves indoors in winter.

In Pigeon Forge the evening is for children. Dinner theatres, go-kart tracks and the lit-up attractions on the Parkway are the entertainment, and the strip goes quiet early. For adults there are only a handful of sports bars, brewpubs and moonshine tastings. Anyone who wants an evening of bar-hopping goes up the valley to Gatlinburg, and many couples simply end the day soaking on the cabin deck.

Pigeon Forge is the gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains, and that is a different class of outdoors. There are ridges above 2,000m, the Appalachian Trail along the crest, waterfall walks like Laurel Falls and the steep Alum Cave route to Mount LeConte. Bears and wild turkey roam Cades Cove, wildflowers come in spring and the hardwoods colour in October.

Milwaukee's nature is gentle and close at hand. Olmsted's Lake Park sits on the bluffs, the long, flat Oak Leaf Trail suits cycling and you can kayak the river through downtown. The glacial hills of Kettle Moraine are about an hour away.

Milwaukee has the stronger list, led by Chicago, about an hour and a half away by train with no car needed. Madison, Frank Lloyd Wright's buildings in Racine, the stone mills of Cedarburg, Kohler's gardens and the lakeside mansions of Lake Geneva are all within easy reach.

From Pigeon Forge every outing means a drive. You can reach Gatlinburg's craft studios, Knoxville's Market Square and Cherokee over Newfound Gap. The best full day is Asheville and the Biltmore Estate, at the end of a longer road.

Pigeon Forge exists for families. Dollywood brings rides, mountain music and seasonal festivals, with a water park next door and mountain coasters, zip lines and mini-golf along the Parkway. Big cabins and indoor water-park hotels are built for groups. The downsides are slow traffic between stops and summer heat on the strip.

Milwaukee is calmer and easier to handle. It has a large zoo, Discovery World's aquariums, a children's museum for younger ones and the Mitchell Park Domes for cold days. Summer adds the beach, baseball and lakeside festivals, but winter limits time outdoors.

Both lean on the car, but Milwaukee has a usable core. Downtown, the Third Ward and the lakefront are walkable, the Riverwalk joins them, and The Hop streetcar and buses help. You only need wheels for the zoo, the Harley-Davidson Museum or the suburbs.

Pigeon Forge is one long multi-lane strip. You can walk only inside individual complexes, the trolley is slow and skips the hillside cabins, and the park trailheads are reachable only by car. In peak weeks the Parkway clogs.

Neither is a shopping destination, and the difference is one of kind. In Milwaukee you browse independent boutiques and design shops in the old Third Ward warehouses and vintage and record shops on Brady Street, then go home with Wisconsin cheese and local beer.

Pigeon Forge offers outlet malls with American mid-market brands, plus mountain crafts. You'll find quilts and stone-ground cornmeal at the Old Mill, and brooms, baskets and woodwork from the studios above Gatlinburg.

Overall costs are similar, but the money goes in different places. In Milwaukee, tavern beer and fish fries are cheap, and the lakefront, parks and many festivals cost little. Hotel rates jump on big festival and game weekends.

In Pigeon Forge, a large cabin shared between families is cheap per head and the buffets are inexpensive. Theme park tickets and dinner shows are where the bill grows. Both expect tips, but only Pigeon Forge makes a car unavoidable. In Milwaukee you can manage the centre without one and only pay for wheels to go further out.

Resident companies give Milwaukee the broader stage. It has a symphony at the Bradley Symphony Center, the Florentine Opera, the Milwaukee Ballet and the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, and touring bands play the ornate 1895 Pabst Theater. Each summer, Summerfest fills the lakefront festival grounds with hundreds of acts over several weeks.

Pigeon Forge puts on shows every night, but almost all in one style. Country and gospel revues, Southern comedy and dinner shows with horses or pirate ships line the Parkway, and Dollywood's stages add bluegrass. For classical music or serious theatre you have to go to Knoxville.

Neither place has a bathing tradition, and both offer only a few day spas. Rest takes a different form in each. In Milwaukee it is a slow walk along the lakefront or the Riverwalk, and for a real spa day people drive an hour north to Kohler.

In Pigeon Forge it means a wooded hillside cabin with a porch, a fireplace and a private hot tub looking out over the ridges. Book high up and well away from the neon of the Parkway.