Nashville or Wisconsin Dells?

Neither place has a coast, but Wisconsin Dells comes out ahead for swimming. Devil's Lake has real sandy beaches under quartzite bluffs and clear water, with Mirror Lake and Lake Delton closer to town, and the waterparks give children endless swimming.

Nashville's reservoir lakes, Percy Priest and Old Hickory, are warmer but are used more for pontoon boats than for beaches, and are worth an afternoon at most. In both places the season is limited to summer.

Nashville has much more to eat. Hot chicken, meat-and-three cafeterias, barbecue and biscuits form a genuine regional cuisine. Chef-led kitchens in East Nashville, Germantown and the Gulch, plus the Kurdish, Mexican and Vietnamese places along Nolensville Pike, add range beyond the Southern staples.

Wisconsin Dells is mostly about feeding a family between attractions, at steakhouses, pizza places and buffets. Its local flavour is a supper-club evening with prime rib and a brandy old fashioned, a Friday fish fry and fresh cheese curds, which is enjoyable but quickly covered.

Nashville offers a lot more sightseeing. The Country Music Hall of Fame, the National Museum of African American Music and a daytime tour of the Ryman make a strong music circuit. The Parthenon replica, the Frist in its Art Deco post office and the Hermitage and Belle Meade plantations widen it into art and Southern history.

In Wisconsin Dells the one serious stop is the H.H. Bennett Studio, which tells how photographs of the gorges first brought tourists here. The upside-down houses and wax museums along Broadway are fun rather than heritage.

This is one of the biggest gaps between the two. Lower Broadway runs as a multi-storey party with a band on every floor until the small hours, and East Nashville and Midtown add dive bars, cocktail lounges and a student crowd.

Wisconsin Dells mostly goes quiet when the waterparks close. You get a few taverns, brewery taprooms, a supper-club cocktail and a casino near Baraboo. Anyone wanting a real night out has to drive to Madison.

Wisconsin Dells has the stronger landscape. The Wisconsin River cuts sandstone canyons that you can explore by boat or kayak, and Devil's Lake adds bluffs, boulder trails and some of the Midwest's best rock climbing. It also has winter cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.

Nashville's outdoors are gentler and closer to the city: owls and deer at Radnor Lake, forest walks in the Warner Parks, an easy paddle on the Harpeth and cycling on the Natchez Trace. They're pleasant, but nothing as striking as the gorges.

The day trips are about equally good, but the themes differ. From Nashville they lead into Civil War history and whiskey: Franklin's Main Street and battlefields, Leiper's Fork, Stones River and the distilleries around Lynchburg, with Chattanooga at the far edge.

From Wisconsin Dells you get a state capital in Madison, Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin and the House on the Rock at Spring Green, and Circus World in Baraboo, which makes the Dells' list stronger on architecture and oddities. You need a car for either list.

Wisconsin Dells is built for children to a degree that Nashville isn't. Its giant indoor and outdoor waterparks, rollercoasters, go-karts and hotels with their own slides keep younger children busy all year, and everything is a short drive away. Teenagers may tire of it faster.

Nashville works if you plan around the Grassmere zoo, the Adventure Science Center, the Lane Motor Museum and the Parthenon. You'll spend more time in the car, though, and need to steer clear of the late-night crowds on Lower Broadway.

Both are car places, but Nashville is the easier of the two. Its compact downtown links Broadway, the Ryman, the Hall of Fame, the Gulch and the riverfront on foot, and there is at least a bus network and plenty of ride-hailing. You still need to drive to reach the Opry or East Nashville, and rush-hour traffic is heavy.

Wisconsin Dells has no useful public transport. Its strips aren't pleasant or safe to walk along, so apart from a few blocks of Broadway every move is by car, and the nearest regular flights land in Madison, about an hour away.

Nashville has more worth buying. You'll find cowboy boots and rhinestone shirts on Broadway, good guitar shops and Hatch Show Print's letterpress posters, plus independent boutiques and record shops in 12 South and East Nashville.

In Wisconsin Dells you mostly get souvenir, candy and cheese shops, which all carry much the same stock, and a mainstream outlet centre for a wet afternoon.

Wisconsin Dells is somewhat easier on the budget. Its older motels and Midwestern prices keep costs moderate outside summer weekends, and the state parks are free. The catch is that ride tickets and resort extras add up quickly for a family in peak season.

Nashville's downtown hotels are expensive, especially on weekends, and tips, taxes and ride-hailing all add to the bill. Its big saving is that the Broadway bands play without a cover charge.

Nashville is in a different league here. The Grand Ole Opry, the Ryman's pews and its famous acoustics, and songwriter nights where the writers play their own hits are reasons in themselves to make the trip. The Schermerhorn and the Tennessee Performing Arts Center add symphony, ballet, opera and musicals.

Wisconsin Dells offers magic shows, dinner shows and touring tribute acts at a Lake Delton theatre. People who care about the stage drive to Spring Green for its summer outdoor classical theatre.

Neither town is somewhere you go to unwind, but Wisconsin Dells gives you slightly more chances to do it. Some of the larger resorts have full spas, and a long-established adults-only spa retreat in the woods gives parents a real break. Early mornings on the river and the empty lakes out of season are calm.

Nashville's options are hotel and day spas, or a slower stay in leafy Belmont or Hillsboro, away from the noise downtown.