Nashville or Virginia Beach?

Here the gap is as wide as it gets. Nashville is inland, and swimming means the small areas on Percy Priest and Old Hickory lakes, where locals prefer pontoon boats to sand. It fills a hot afternoon and nothing more.

Virginia Beach is a resort built on its beach. There are miles of pale sand along the Oceanfront boardwalk, surf near the fishing pier, calmer water on the Chesapeake Bay side at First Landing and dunes at Sandbridge. Swimming lasts from about June to October, but in those months it is the whole point of the trip.

Nashville's food has more character. Hot chicken is its signature dish, backed by meat-and-three cafeterias, barbecue, biscuits and Tennessee whiskey. The kitchens of East Nashville and Germantown, and the Kurdish and Vietnamese places on Nolensville Pike, add range beyond the Southern classics.

Virginia Beach is best for seafood, with Lynnhaven oysters and blue crab at dockside places around the inlet. The Oceanfront itself leans on chains and buffets, though, and food lovers often drive to Norfolk for more variety.

Neither is a great sightseeing city, but Nashville has more to fill a day. The Country Music Hall of Fame, the National Museum of African American Music and a daytime tour of the Ryman tell the story of American music. The Parthenon replica, the Frist in its Art Deco post office and the Hermitage add art and the region's harder history.

Virginia Beach has a short list: the Cape Henry landing site with its 18th-century lighthouse, the Adam Thoroughgood House and the Neptune statue on the boardwalk. For serious history you need to head an hour up the peninsula.

Nashville is by far the livelier night out. Lower Broadway's honky-tonks run as one long party until the small hours. East Nashville's dive bars and Midtown's student crowd offer something different, although dance clubs are scarce in both cities.

In Virginia Beach, summer nights mean the beach bars and rooftop decks of Atlantic Avenue, which are casual and good-natured, with Town Center for cocktails. Out of season the strip empties early.

Virginia Beach has the edge outdoors, mostly because so much happens on the water. You can kayak out to see dolphins, surf, paddleboard in the inlets or walk the empty barrier shoreline of Back Bay and False Cape. First Landing State Park adds cypress swamp and maritime forest.

Nashville's countryside is greener and rolling, with quiet trails at Radnor Lake, the forests of the Warner Parks, canoeing on the Harpeth and the Natchez Trace for cycling. It has gentle hills where Virginia Beach has none, and it is at its best with the spring wildflowers and autumn colour.

Virginia Beach has the stronger day out. Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown are about an hour away and make a full day of early American history. Norfolk's battleship and waterfront, and Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks, add more options.

Nashville's day trips are smaller in scale: Franklin's Main Street and Civil War battlefields half an hour south, the village of Leiper's Fork and the whiskey distilleries around Lynchburg. In both cities you need a car for almost all of it.

Virginia Beach is built for family vacations. The aquarium with its sea turtles and otters, calm bay beaches for small children, mini-golf, bike hire on the boardwalk and a big theme park near Williamsburg easily fill a week. Hotels and rental houses are set up for children.

Nashville takes more planning. The zoo at Grassmere, the Adventure Science Center and the Lane Motor Museum are good, but Lower Broadway is loud adult territory and the attractions are spread far apart.

Both are car cities with a small walkable core and weak buses, so the difference lies in what that core holds. In Nashville, Broadway, the Ryman, the Hall of Fame, the Gulch and the pedestrian bridge are all a short walk apart. That covers most of a music-focused stay, though the Opry and East Nashville need a ride.

In Virginia Beach the walkable part is the boardwalk, with a summer trolley along Atlantic Avenue. That works for a beach week at the Oceanfront, but the parks, Sandbridge and every day trip mean driving.

Nashville gives you more reason to shop. Boot and hat shops on Lower Broadway, guitar stores, Hatch Show Print posters and the independent boutiques and record shops of 12 South and East Nashville make for a browse with a clear theme. Virginia Beach offers malls, chain stores at Town Center and souvenir T-shirts, and its surf shops are the one local speciality.

Neither city is cheap, but Virginia Beach is somewhat easier on the budget, especially outside summer. Oceanfront rooms fall sharply off-season, and the beach, boardwalk and state parks cost little or nothing.

Nashville's downtown hotels stay expensive, particularly at weekends, and ride-hailing around the spread-out city adds up. What saves money is the free music in the honky-tonks and the modest cost of hot chicken counters and meat-and-three cafeterias.

This is Nashville's strongest point and the reason most people come. The Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman's famous acoustics, songwriter nights in small rooms, bluegrass near the Gulch and a fine symphony hall mean there is music at every scale on any night.

Virginia Beach has summer concerts at its outdoor amphitheatre and free stages along the boardwalk. For serious opera and orchestral music, you go to Norfolk.

Neither city is made for unwinding, and both rely on hotel and day spas. Virginia Beach is the calmer of the two: early mornings on the boardwalk and the quiet spring and autumn months slow the pace, though high summer is crowded and loud.

Nashville's downtown runs on noise and late nights. For a restful stay, base yourself in leafy Belmont or Hillsboro.