Nashville or St. Pete Beach?

There is no real contest here. Nashville is hundreds of miles from the sea. The nearest it gets is Percy Priest Lake or Old Hickory Lake, with small swimming areas and pontoon boats, which makes a summer afternoon and no more.

St. Pete Beach is built around its sand. The fine quartz runs the length of the island, the water is calm enough for small children, and Pass-a-Grille has wide sand facing the sunset. Fort De Soto and the undeveloped beaches of Shell Key add space when the main strip feels full.

Nashville has the stronger and more distinctive food. Hot chicken, meat-and-three cafeterias, biscuits and barbecue give it a real regional identity. East Nashville, Germantown and the Gulch add more ambitious cooking, and the Kurdish and Vietnamese places on Nolensville Pike widen the range.

St. Pete Beach eats simply and by the water: grouper sandwiches, smoked fish spread and stone crab claws in season, often eaten on a deck at sunset. That is pleasant, but chain restaurants take up much of Gulf Boulevard, and for more serious cooking you cross to St. Petersburg.

Nashville has far more to see. The Country Music Hall of Fame, the National Museum of African American Music and a daytime tour of the Ryman fill a music-themed day. The Parthenon replica, the Frist in its Art Deco post office and the plantation houses of the Hermitage and Belle Meade cover art and the region's harder history.

In St. Pete Beach the sights are the Don CeSar hotel, the old cottages of Pass-a-Grille and the war batteries at Fort De Soto. For the Dalí Museum or any other major collection you have to go across the bay.

Nashville is one of the great American cities for a night out. Lower Broadway runs as one long party with bands on several floors of each honky-tonk, and it is loud and full of hen and stag groups at weekends. East Nashville's dive bars and cocktail lounges give a calmer alternative, though there are few dance clubs.

St. Pete Beach does its socialising at sunset, with a cover band on a tiki deck, and most people head home soon after dark. Anyone wanting a bigger night drives to downtown St. Petersburg.

St. Pete Beach has the edge, and nearly all of it is on the water. You can paddle the mangrove trails at Fort De Soto, see dolphins from a boat, spot manatees in the cooler months and watch roseate spoonbills on the flats. There is almost nothing to hike, though.

Nashville's outdoors is gentler and on land. Radnor Lake and the Warner Parks have woodland trails, the Harpeth River is good for an easy canoe trip, and the Natchez Trace Parkway is a lovely road for cycling or driving. It is at its best in spring and autumn.

The two are fairly close here, and St. Pete Beach is slightly ahead because it has bigger places within reach. St. Petersburg's museums, Tampa's Ybor City, Greek-rooted Tarpon Springs and Sarasota's Ringling estate are all an hour or less away, and Orlando's theme parks are possible at a stretch.

Nashville's day trips are smaller and more rural. Franklin has its Main Street and Civil War houses, Leiper's Fork its galleries, and the whiskey distilleries around Lynchburg are about an hour and a half away. Chattanooga is a long day out.

St. Pete Beach is the easier place with young children. The shallow, usually calm water and soft sand mean little to worry about, and most Gulf Boulevard hotels have pools. Dolphin boats, shelling on Shell Key and the aquariums in Clearwater and Tampa fill the days away from the beach.

Nashville can work well if you plan around the zoo at Grassmere, the Adventure Science Center and the Lane Motor Museum. Lower Broadway, though, is adult territory after dark, and you will spend more time driving between sights.

Both places are much easier with a car. They differ in what you can do without one. In Nashville, Broadway, the Ryman, the Hall of Fame and the Gulch are all within walking distance downtown, but the Opry, the Hermitage and neighbourhoods like 12 South mean using ride-hailing on busy interstates.

St. Pete Beach is a single narrow strip with a trolley along Gulf Boulevard, and Pass-a-Grille is pleasant to walk or cycle. Every outing beyond the island, including the airport, is a drive, because the buses to the mainland are slow.

Nashville has more to browse, and it has a clear theme. There are cowboy boots and rhinestone shirts on Broadway, vintage guitars, Hatch Show Print's letterpress posters, and independent boutiques and record shops in 12 South and East Nashville.

St. Pete Beach sells swimwear, beach gear and souvenirs, with a few galleries on Corey Avenue and in Pass-a-Grille. For a mall you go inland.

Neither place is cheap, and the costs come from different places. In Nashville, downtown hotels jump in price at weekends and during big events, but the honky-tonk music is free and hot chicken counters keep meals affordable.

At St. Pete Beach the beachfront resorts are most expensive from February to April, and you will probably need a hire car. In return, the beach itself costs nothing beyond parking, and the motels a block back from the sand are cheaper, especially in late summer.

Nashville is a city people travel to just to hear music, and it has the stages for it. The Grand Ole Opry plays several nights a week, and touring artists of every genre play to audiences in the Ryman's old church pews. In the small songwriter rooms the people who wrote the hits play them on acoustic guitars. There is also bluegrass near the Gulch, Americana in East Nashville, the symphony at the Schermerhorn, and ballet, opera and musicals at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

St. Pete Beach has no stage of its own beyond beach bars, where the music is cover bands and acoustic sets. For an orchestra or a play, you drive to St. Petersburg for the Florida Orchestra and its mid-sized theatres, or about 45 minutes to Tampa for touring musicals and opera.

St. Pete Beach is much the better place to unwind. Neither has a bathing tradition, but the beach town has resort spas and a slow pace, with morning walks on the sand and a sunset that brings everyone to a stop, especially in Pass-a-Grille.

Nashville is built around noise and late nights. Beyond hotel day spas, rest means staying in leafy Belmont or Hillsboro, away from Broadway.