Nashville or Pensacola?

This is the widest gap between the two. Pensacola has the beach Nashville lacks: Gulf Islands National Seashore and Pensacola Beach stretch for miles of white quartz sand and clear green water, with quieter Perdido Key to the west and calm sound-side shallows for toddlers.

Nashville, hundreds of kilometres inland, can only offer the swimming areas and boat ramps of Percy Priest and Old Hickory lakes. They are fine for a hot afternoon on a pontoon, but nobody should plan a sun-and-sand trip around them.

Nashville eats better and more widely. Hot chicken is a dish worth travelling for, and the meat-and-three cafeterias, barbecue and breakfast biscuits sit alongside modern Southern kitchens in Germantown and the Gulch and the Kurdish, Mexican and Vietnamese spots on Nolensville Pike.

Pensacola's table is narrower but has its own pleasures: chargrilled oysters, grouper sandwiches and royal red shrimp eaten by the water. Away from the bay and Palafox Street, the beach strip relies on chains.

The two are fairly even here, but the subject matter differs completely. Nashville's sights are mostly about music, led by the Country Music Hall of Fame and the National Museum of African American Music, with the Parthenon replica, the Frist and the plantations of the Hermitage and Belle Meade beyond.

Pensacola tells a longer colonial story. The houses of Historic Pensacola around Plaza Ferdinand reflect its five flags, Fort Pickens stands at the tip of the island, and the vast National Naval Aviation Museum sits on an active base where you need ID to get in.

Nashville is the far bigger night out. Lower Broadway's multi-storey honky-tonks stay loud until the small hours, and East Nashville's dive bars and cocktail lounges give you somewhere calmer to go, though in both cities the evening is about drinks and bands rather than DJs.

Pensacola's evenings are smaller and more seasonal: pubs, rooftops and taprooms on Palafox Street and in Seville Quarter, sandy-floored beach bars on the island, and the rowdy state-line roadhouse at Perdido Key. Outside summer weekends it goes quiet early.

Pensacola's outdoors is flat and watery, and more memorable for it. You can cycle the seashore path past dunes and salt marsh, watch dolphins and ospreys from a kayak, dive the sunken carrier reef, or tube down the clear, sandy Blackwater River.

Nashville's countryside is gentler and wooded, with deer and owls at Radnor Lake, forest trails in the Warner Parks and the Natchez Trace Parkway for cycling. It is pleasant, but you will find more variety on the Gulf.

Nashville has slightly more to offer within easy reach. Franklin's Main Street and Civil War houses are half an hour away, Leiper's Fork and Stones River are nearby, and the whiskey distilleries around Lynchburg and Chattanooga's Lookout Mountain make longer days out.

From Pensacola the best trip is west to Mobile's antebellum streets and battleship, with Fairhope and Fort Morgan around the bay. Eastward, Destin and Seaside are more beach towns, so the variety runs out sooner.

Pensacola is somewhat easier with children, mainly because the beach entertains them for days. Calm sound-side water, condos with kitchens and pools, plus the aviation museum, the Blue Angels, the lighthouse climb and the tunnels at Fort Pickens cover the rest, though the summer heat and storms need planning.

Nashville has more set-piece attractions in the Grassmere zoo, the Adventure Science Center and the Lane Motor Museum. However, Broadway is not a place for children in the evening, and a lot of the day is spent in the car.

Both cities are made for drivers, but Nashville is the easier of the two without a car. Broadway, the Ryman, the Hall of Fame, the Gulch and the riverfront are all close enough to walk between, and the pedestrian bridge takes you to the east bank. Ride-hailing covers the Opry and the outer neighbourhoods.

In Pensacola only Palafox Street and the historic district are walkable. The beach, the naval base and Perdido Key are separated by highways and bridges, and apart from the seasonal beach trolley the buses are of little use to a visitor.

Nashville has the more distinctive shopping. There are boot and rhinestone shops on Broadway, some of the best guitar browsing anywhere and letterpress posters from Hatch Show Print, while 12 South and East Nashville have independent boutiques and record shops.

Pensacola's shopping is limited to a few boutiques and antique shops on Palafox Street, the Saturday market, a regional mall and swimwear shops on the beach.

Pensacola is easier on the budget. The rooms in town and inland cost noticeably less than those on the beach, the whole island gets cheaper out of season, the aviation museum is free and the seashore costs little. The catch is the car hire, which almost every visitor needs.

Nashville's downtown hotels are costly, especially at weekends, and eating out costs what it does in any large American city. What saves money there is the free music on Broadway and the cheap meals at hot chicken counters.

Here Nashville is in a different league, and it is the main reason to go. The Opry, the Ryman's pews and acoustics, bands in every Broadway honky-tonk from late morning, intimate songwriter nights, bluegrass near the Gulch and Americana in East Nashville give you a choice every night, and the Schermerhorn hall adds the symphony.

Pensacola's restored 1925 Saenger Theatre hosts a symphony, opera, ballet and touring shows, which is respectable for a small city but makes for a nice evening rather than a reason to visit.

Neither city has a spa tradition, so the difference lies in the pace. Pensacola relaxes you more easily: outside the summer peak the island and the quiet stretches of Perdido Key are slow and uncrowded, a sea to look at rather than a strip to dodge.

In Nashville, rest means a hotel spa or a porch café in leafy Belmont or Hillsboro, well away from downtown's noise.