Nashville or St. Augustine?

Nashville has no coast. The nearest thing is Percy Priest and Old Hickory lakes, where locals take pontoon boats out on summer weekends. It's fine for an afternoon, but it isn't a beach vacation.

St. Augustine has a proper one. Pale, flat sand runs along Anastasia Island from the state park dunes to quiet Crescent Beach, with Vilano Beach to the north, all within a short drive of the old town. From late spring to autumn the water is warm and slopes gently, though it is greenish rather than clear, and in winter it is better for walking than swimming.

Nashville eats better and more widely. Hot chicken is the city's own dish, meat-and-three cafeterias and smokehouses cover the Southern classics, and Tennessee whiskey comes with them. East Nashville, Germantown and the Gulch have the chef-led cooking, and Nolensville Pike adds Kurdish, Mexican and Vietnamese food.

St. Augustine is a small town for food, built around shrimp, oysters and fried fish at casual places by the water. Its distinctive touch is the datil pepper brought by Minorcan settlers, which turns up in a fiery red clam chowder and in pilau. The restaurants along St. George Street mostly cater to passing tourists.

Nashville's sightseeing is mostly about music. The Country Music Hall of Fame and the Ryman are the highlights, with the Parthenon replica, the Frist in its Art Deco post office and the Hermitage plantation for some variety. The city itself is largely modern.

St. Augustine gives you more history to walk through. It was founded in 1565, and the coquina-stone Castillo de San Marcos and the balconied lanes of the Spanish quarter make it feel like nowhere else in the country. Flagler College's Tiffany glass and the Lightner Museum add a Gilded Age layer, and two or three days covers it all comfortably.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. Lower Broadway in Nashville is several blocks of multi-storey honky-tonks with a band on every floor, crowded with hen and stag groups until the small hours. East Nashville's dive bars and cocktail lounges are there if you want something calmer. Like St. Augustine, it has few dance clubs.

In St. Augustine you spend the evening on courtyard patios around St. George and Hypolita streets or at a beach bar on the island. It's lively at weekends but finishes early, and it suits a drink after dinner rather than a night out.

The two are about even, but the landscapes are quite different. Around Nashville you get wooded hills and limestone creeks: deer and owls at Radnor Lake, forest trails in the Warner Parks, easy canoeing on the Harpeth and cycling along the Natchez Trace.

St. Augustine is completely flat and shaped by water: salt marsh, dunes and the Matanzas River, with dolphins and ospreys on kayak trips and long birding walks in the Guana reserve. Summer heat makes both best outside midsummer, in spring and autumn inland and from late autumn to spring on the coast.

Both have a reasonable list rather than a great one, and both need a car. From Nashville the trips are about small towns and the South's history: Franklin's Main Street and Civil War battlefields, the whiskey distilleries around Lynchburg, and Chattanooga at the edge of a day.

From St. Augustine you mostly follow the coast or head for big attractions. Victorian Fernandina Beach and the Daytona speedway are each under two hours away, and Kennedy Space Center and the Orlando theme parks make long but popular days out.

St. Augustine is the easier place with children. The Alligator Farm, running since 1893, has a zipline as well as crocodiles, soldiers fire cannons at the fort, and the lighthouse climb and gentle summer surf fill the rest of the time. The compact old centre keeps most of this a short walk or drive apart.

Nashville has good attractions too, including the zoo, the Adventure Science Center's planetarium and the Lane Motor Museum's odd cars. But they are spread out, which means a lot of time in the car, and Lower Broadway is aimed at adults drinking rather than at children.

You need a car in both. In Nashville that matters more, because the walkable downtown is only part of the trip. The Opry, the Hermitage, Belle Meade and neighbourhoods like East Nashville and 12 South are separate drives, rush-hour traffic is heavy and buses are the only public transport.

In St. Augustine most of what you'll see is within the flat historic district, where the fort, Flagler College and the bayfront are minutes apart on foot and sightseeing trolleys loop past them. The beaches still need a car, a bike or a taxi, but they are close by.

Nashville gives shoppers more to look for. Cowboy boots and rhinestone shirts line Broadway, the guitar shops are among the best anywhere, and Hatch Show Print's letterpress posters make a souvenir with real history. 12 South and East Nashville add independent boutiques and record shops.

St. Augustine has less to offer. St. George Street is mostly fudge, hot sauce and pirate souvenirs, so the better finds are the galleries and antique dealers on Aviles Street. There is also an outlet mall by the interstate for mainstream brands.

Neither is cheap, and both get pricier at weekends, so midweek visits help in both. They differ in where you can save. In Nashville, the honky-tonks have no cover charge, so the music is free, while getting around by ride-hailing adds up.

In St. Augustine, the free things are walking the old streets and spending time on the public beaches. Staying in a chain motel by the highway or on the island costs much less than the historic inns close to the fort.

Nashville is far ahead here, as it is one of the main reasons people visit. You can hear the Grand Ole Opry several nights a week and touring artists in the pews of the Ryman. Songwriters play their own hits in small rooms, and there's bluegrass near the Gulch. The Symphony plays at the Schermerhorn, and the Tennessee Performing Arts Center hosts ballet and opera.

St. Augustine's main stage is the open-air amphitheatre in the woods on Anastasia Island, which hosts touring rock, country and folk acts. Otherwise it's cover bands on bar patios and a community theatre, and opera means a drive to Jacksonville.

Neither has a spa tradition, but St. Augustine is the more restful of the two. Old-town B&Bs have verandas and courtyard gardens, the evening walk along the bayfront seawall is easy, and midweek the whole town slows down.

Nashville's centre is built for noise and late nights, and its spas are mostly in hotels. For a quieter stay you have to base yourself in the leafy streets of Belmont or Hillsboro.