Nashville or Rehoboth Beach?

There is no contest here. Nashville's only water is its reservoir lakes, Percy Priest and Old Hickory, with small swimming areas and pontoon boats. They are fine for a hot afternoon but not a reason to come.

Rehoboth is built around a long Atlantic beach of pale sand, with lifeguards in front of the boardwalk and wilder stretches at Cape Henlopen and Delaware Seashore State Park. The one limit is the short season: the water is only good for swimming from mid-June to September.

Nashville has the deeper and more distinctive food. There is hot chicken, there are meat-and-three cafeterias, barbecue and Tennessee whiskey, and there is chef-led cooking in East Nashville and the Gulch, plus the Kurdish and Vietnamese places along Nolensville Pike.

Rehoboth eats better than most beach towns, with steamed blue crabs, crab cakes, raw bars and a strong craft beer tradition, but the range is a resort's and shrinks after summer. Come for crab on a deck, not for a food trip.

Nashville gives you a proper day or two of sights, most of them about music: the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Ryman and the National Museum of African American Music. Beyond music there are the Parthenon replica, the Frist in its Art Deco post office, and the Hermitage and Belle Meade for the region's harder history.

Rehoboth has its 1870s camp-meeting cottages, the Rehoboth Art League and a few galleries, and little more. Visitors who are curious about history usually drive over to Lewes.

Nashville goes out on a different scale. On Lower Broadway there are bands on every floor of the honky-tonks until the small hours, and East Nashville and Midtown offer quieter bars if the strip is too much.

Rehoboth's nights are sociable rather than big: piano lounges, drag nights and a long-standing LGBTQ bar scene around Baltimore Avenue, plus the deck bars of Dewey Beach for a louder, younger crowd. It is mostly a summer affair and ends earlier. Neither place is much for dance clubs.

The two are broadly level, but the settings are very different. Nashville's outdoors is wooded hills and limestone creeks: forest walks at Radnor Lake and the Warner Parks, canoeing on the Harpeth, and the Natchez Trace for cycling or a scenic drive. It is best in spring and autumn.

Rehoboth's outdoors is flat and coastal, with the tall dunes of Cape Henlopen, salt marsh, kayaking on the inland bays and dolphins offshore in summer. Choose Nashville for woodland and shade, Rehoboth for water and easy bike rides.

Both offer pleasant small-town outings rather than major sights, and both need a car. From Nashville the draw is Civil War history and whiskey: Franklin's Main Street and battlefields, then the distillery country around Lynchburg, with Chattanooga a long day away.

From Rehoboth the trips follow the coast. Lewes is ten minutes away, the ferry crosses Delaware Bay to Victorian Cape May, and Ocean City's brasher boardwalk and the island village of Chincoteague lie to the south.

Nashville works with children if you plan around its attractions: the zoo at Grassmere, the Adventure Science Center and the Lane Motor Museum. Even so, it means a lot of time in the car, and Lower Broadway is no place for children in the evening.

Rehoboth is by far the easier family trip. Lifeguarded sand is steps from the rental houses, Funland has gentle rides on the boardwalk, and Cape Henlopen adds calm bay water and a nature centre. The catch is the calendar, because out of season there is little laid on for children.

Once you are on the ground, Rehoboth is much easier to get around. Nashville is simple to fly into, and its downtown core of Broadway, the Ryman, the riverfront and the Gulch is a short walk end to end. Beyond that you need a car or ride-hailing. The Opry, the Hermitage, East Nashville and 12 South are each a drive apart through heavy interstate traffic, and the only public transport is buses.

Rehoboth has the opposite problem. There is no train, so getting there means driving, and the highway clogs on summer weekends. Once you have parked, though, the beach, the boardwalk and downtown are a short walk apart on a flat grid, bikes cover the rest, and a seasonal trolley runs to Dewey Beach. The main daily nuisance is finding a parking space in the centre.

Neither is a major shopping destination, and each has its own niche. In Nashville it is boots, Western wear, guitars and Hatch Show Print posters, with independent boutiques and record shops in 12 South and East Nashville.

Rehoboth's draw is Delaware's lack of sales tax, which fills the outlet centres along the highway, while Rehoboth Avenue offers boutiques, bookshops and resort-casual clothes.

Both are expensive at their peak and cost about the same overall. In Nashville the cost comes from downtown hotels at weekends and ride-hailing across a spread-out city. It is eased by the honky-tonks, where the music costs nothing, and by cheap hot chicken counters.

In Rehoboth the cost comes from summer premiums on hotels and rental houses near the beach. The beach itself is free, there is no sales tax, and rooms cost far less in spring and autumn. In both places, avoiding weekends saves the most.

This is Nashville's strongest suit and the biggest gap between the two. The Grand Ole Opry, the pews of the Ryman, songwriter nights in small rooms, bluegrass near the Gulch and the symphony at the Schermerhorn add up to live music every night of the year.

Rehoboth has free concerts at the bandstand on summer evenings, musicals and cabaret from a small local theatre company, and an autumn film festival. They are nice to come across but not a reason to go.

Neither has a spa tradition, so the difference is pace. Nashville's centre runs on noise and late nights, and a quieter stay means retreating to the leafy streets of Belmont or Hillsboro.

Rehoboth is the more restful choice, especially in June and September and on autumn weekends. Then the boardwalk empties and the days slow to long walks and bike rides under the pines. High summer there is crowded and noisy too.