Nashville or Ocean City, Maryland?

On beaches there is no real contest. Nashville is far inland, and the best it can manage is a swim or a pontoon-boat afternoon on Percy Priest or Old Hickory Lake in summer.

In Ocean City the beach is the whole point. A wide strip of soft Atlantic sand runs the length of the island, with lifeguards and a street access almost every block, and Assateague's undeveloped dunes are a short drive south. The one catch is that the sea is only warm from mid June into September.

Nashville gives you more to eat. Hot chicken, meat-and-three plates, barbecue and biscuits make up a real regional cooking style. Beyond them are chef-led kitchens in East Nashville and the Gulch, and Kurdish, Mexican and Vietnamese places along Nolensville Pike.

Ocean City has one great ritual: a paper-covered table of steamed blue crabs with Old Bay, and boardwalk fries and frozen custard to go with it. Beyond seafood and snacks it is mostly diners and chains, and many kitchens slow down after summer.

For sightseeing Nashville is well ahead. You can fill several days with the Country Music Hall of Fame, a daytime tour of the Ryman, the Parthenon replica in Centennial Park and the Frist in its Art Deco post office. The Hermitage and Belle Meade add the region's harder history.

Ocean City's heritage is the boardwalk itself, with its old hotels, wooden piers and early twentieth-century carousel. The Life-Saving Station Museum fills an hour, and that is about it.

Nashville has the bigger and steadier night out. Lower Broadway's honky-tonks have a live band on every floor, all year round, and East Nashville's dive bars and cocktail lounges are there when you want something quieter. Drinks here come with live musicians rather than DJs.

Ocean City is the place for a summer party with dancing. It has sand-floored open-air bars on the bayside at sunset and DJ bars along the Coastal Highway, with a young crowd. From October to May almost all of it closes.

The two are fairly even outdoors, but in very different landscapes. Around Nashville it is green and gently hilly, with forest trails at Radnor Lake and the Warner Parks, easy paddling on the Harpeth and the Natchez Trace Parkway for cycling or a scenic drive.

Ocean City is all flat water and sky. Wild ponies graze in Assateague's marshes, there is kayaking and paddleboarding in the calm back bays, and the town has a long tradition of offshore marlin fishing. Choose Nashville for woodland walks and Ocean City for being on the water.

Nashville has slightly better day trips. Franklin's Main Street and Civil War battlefields are half an hour away, the whiskey distilleries around Lynchburg make a good drive, and Chattanooga and Lookout Mountain are within reach for a long day.

From Ocean City the trips are to quiet Delmarva towns: Berlin, Snow Hill and the pony village of Chincoteague. Rehoboth Beach, with its restaurants, is to the north, and from Lewes a ferry crosses to Victorian Cape May. They are pleasant places, but nothing on either list is a major destination.

Ocean City was built for families and it shows. Lifeguards watch the beach, and the boardwalk amusement parks, water parks, go-karts and mini-golf are all within a short drive. Renting a condo with a kitchen makes a week easy, as long as you avoid the early June weeks when graduating teenagers take over.

Nashville can work with children if you stick to the zoo at Grassmere, the Adventure Science Center and the Lane Motor Museum. Lower Broadway at night is no place for them, though, and the sights are spread out by car.

In both places most visitors depend on a car, but in different ways. Nashville's compact downtown puts Broadway, the Ryman, the Hall of Fame and the Gulch within an easy walk. The Opry, the Hermitage and neighbourhoods like 12 South are a drive away on busy roads, and there is only a bus network.

Ocean City is one long strip with the busy Coastal Highway down the middle, which is unpleasant to walk beside. If you stay near the sea, though, the beach is minutes away, and in summer the town bus and the boardwalk tram cover a lot of ground. You still need the car for Assateague and the mainland towns.

Nashville has more worth buying. There are boots and rhinestone shirts on Broadway, some of the best guitar shops anywhere, and letterpress posters from Hatch Show Print. Independent boutiques and record shops cluster in 12 South and East Nashville.

Ocean City sells beach goods: T-shirts, surf gear, taffy and fudge along the boardwalk, with an outlet centre across the bridge for mainstream brands.

Neither is cheap, but Ocean City is easier on the budget. Older motels a few blocks back from the sea, condos shared by a group, boardwalk food and a free beach all keep costs down. Late May and September bring room rates well below midsummer.

In Nashville the downtown hotels get expensive at weekends, and the ride-hailing adds up. What saves money is that the Broadway bands play without a cover charge, and hot chicken counters and meat-and-three cafeterias are cheap ways to eat well.

This is where the two differ most. Nashville is one of the world's music cities. The Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman's pews are the famous stages, with intimate songwriter nights, a bluegrass room near the Gulch and Americana venues in East Nashville below them. The Schermerhorn hall and the Tennessee Performing Arts Center cover classical music, ballet and opera.

Ocean City offers summer bandstand concerts on the boardwalk, cover bands in the bars and touring comedians at the convention centre.

Neither is a place to unwind. Both have only hotel and day spas, and both are loud at their peak. Nashville's quieter side is in the leafy streets of Belmont and Hillsboro, with porch cafés and parks, away from downtown.

In Ocean City the calm comes from the sea. An early walk on an empty northern beach in the shoulder months is about as restful as either place gets.