New York or Pigeon Forge?

New York has real Atlantic beaches at the end of the subway lines: Coney Island with its boardwalk, the longer and more open Rockaways with their surfers, and Jones Beach about an hour out. Pigeon Forge is hundreds of kilometres from the sea and has no beach at all.

Swimming there means Dollywood's water park, hotel pools, the shores of Douglas Lake or the rock pools in mountain streams. Neither city is a beach destination, but only New York gives you surf and sand for a summer afternoon.

This is one of the widest gaps between the two. New York cooks Cantonese in Flushing, Polish in Greenpoint, Caribbean in Crown Heights and Italian on Arthur Avenue, and it adds a deep fine-dining scene on top of its own classics: the slice, the bagel and the deli pastrami.

Pigeon Forge eats big and simple along the Parkway: pancake houses, Southern buffets with fried chicken and cobbler, barbecue and chains, with moonshine and fudge as its local touch. For a meal of real ambition you would drive to Knoxville or Asheville.

New York's museums could fill a stay on their own: the Met, MoMA, the Guggenheim and the Frick on Museum Mile, the Cloisters above the Hudson, and landmarks from the Statue of Liberty to Grand Central. Its history is mostly nineteenth and twentieth century, read in Brooklyn brownstones and Lower East Side tenements.

Pigeon Forge is a resort strip whose sights are built for amusement, such as the half-scale Titanic and illusion museums. Its one real historic building is the Old Mill of 1830. Mountain heritage is better found in the crafts at Dollywood and the log cabins and churches inside the national park.

New York never really shuts. You can go from speakeasy-style bars and old dives in the East Village to rooftop terraces in Long Island City, and the warehouse clubs of Williamsburg and Bushwick go on past dawn while the trains keep running.

In Pigeon Forge the evening belongs to families: go-karts, dinner shows and lit-up attraction complexes that quieten down around ten. For adults there are a few sports bars, brewpubs and moonshine tasting rooms. Most end the night in Gatlinburg's bars or in the cabin hot tub.

Pigeon Forge wins clearly here, because the Great Smoky Mountains begin about half an hour away. Forested ridges rise to over 2,000m, the trails run from Laurel Falls to Mount LeConte and the Appalachian Trail, and black bears and wild turkey graze in Cades Cove. You can also go fishing, tubing or horse riding.

New York's nature is mostly designed: Central Park, Prospect Park, the High Line and the birdlife of Jamaica Bay. For proper hiking you take the train to Breakneck Ridge in the Hudson Highlands, which is a good climb but a day out rather than the mountains on your doorstep.

New York has the richer choice of days out. Philadelphia, with Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and its colonial old town, is about an hour and a half by train, Princeton's Gothic campus lies on the way, and New Haven has Yale's museums and its own style of pizza. Up the Hudson, a train and sometimes a short drive bring you to Dia Beacon, the sculpture park at Storm King and the Gilded Age estates.

Pigeon Forge has fewer good options, and you will want the car for them. The crafts loop above Gatlinburg and Knoxville's Market Square are close, and Cherokee's museum and Oconaluftee village lie over Newfound Gap. The best day out is Asheville and the Biltmore Estate, about an hour and three-quarters away, and after that the list thins quickly.

Pigeon Forge is built around children. Dollywood, with its coasters, craft demonstrations and seasonal festivals, sits beside a water park, the Parkway has mini-golf and mountain coasters, and big cabins and indoor water-park hotels make group stays easy. The catch is the driving and the summer heat on the strip.

New York has stronger single sights for curious children, among them the dinosaurs and planetarium at the Natural History museum, the Bronx Zoo and the aircraft carrier on the Hudson. The city itself is harder going, though, with stairs-only stations, small hotel rooms and tiring Midtown crowds.

In New York you never need a car. Manhattan's grid is easy to walk, the subway runs all night with contactless entry, and ferries and Citi Bikes fill the gaps. Its irritations are express-versus-local trains, weekend reroutes and awkward airport links.

Pigeon Forge is a long multi-lane strip where almost everyone keeps their car. The Parkway trolley helps on busy days but is slow and does not reach the hillside cabins or the park trailheads. Traffic crawls in summer, October and over Christmas.

New York shops at every level: flagships on Fifth Avenue, luxury houses on Madison, the great department stores, SoHo's design brands, and vintage and records in Williamsburg. It is also strong on rare books, sneakers and weekend makers' markets.

Pigeon Forge offers outlet malls of American mid-market brands and plenty of fudge and T-shirts. Its best buys are the handmade things: pottery and quilts by the Old Mill, and brooms, baskets and woodwork from the craft studios above Gatlinburg.

Pigeon Forge is far easier on the wallet. Motel rooms and rental cabins are plentiful, a big cabin shared between families is cheap per head, and the breakfast houses and buffets cost little. The money goes on theme park days, dinner shows and the car.

New York is one of the dearest places to visit. Rooms are small and costly, with sales tax and a tip on top of every meal. You can trim the cost by staying in Queens or New Jersey and eating slices and street-cart food, and the ferry, parks and High Line are free.

New York is the stronger city for performance by a long way. It has Broadway and Off-Broadway, the Met Opera, the Philharmonic and City Ballet at Lincoln Center, orchestras at Carnegie Hall, jazz in Village basements and Harlem, and free Shakespeare in the park in summer.

Pigeon Forge's stages are lively but narrow in range. There are country and gospel revues, magic acts and dinner shows with horses or pirate ships along the Parkway, and bluegrass at Dollywood. There is no opera, serious theatre or jazz.

Neither is a spa destination, but New York has a real bathing culture. There is the century-old Russian and Turkish bathhouse in the East Village, banyas in Brighton Beach and big Korean jjimjilbang spas in Queens, and calm can be found at the Cloisters gardens or on a harbour ferry.

Pigeon Forge has only a few day spas. Its kind of rest is private: a porch, a fireplace and a hot tub in a hillside cabin above the ridges, booked well away from the neon of the Parkway.