Orlando or Pigeon Forge?

Neither town is on the sea, but Orlando can at least reach it in a day. Cocoa Beach and New Smyrna Beach, long Atlantic strands with soft sand, are about an hour's drive east, and the calmer Gulf beaches around Clearwater are about two hours west.

Pigeon Forge is many hours from any coast. Swimming there means the shores of Douglas Lake or the boulder pools in the national park's streams in summer. In both places most of the swimming happens in hotel pools and water parks.

Orlando eats noticeably better once you leave the tourist corridors. Mills 50 has a long run of Vietnamese and other Asian kitchens, and Winter Park and Audubon Park have chef-led restaurants and farmers' markets. Inside the parks, Epcot's World Showcase makes grazing more interesting than standard theme-park fare.

Pigeon Forge keeps to big portions along the Parkway: all-morning pancakes, Southern buffets with fried chicken and cobbler, and barbecue. Moonshine tastings and fudge by the Old Mill are its one local flavour, and a serious Appalachian meal means driving to Knoxville or Asheville.

Neither town is a place for heritage, but Orlando has one sight worth planning around: the Morse Museum in Winter Park, with the largest Tiffany collection anywhere and the chapel he made for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. The Orlando Museum of Art and the history centre downtown fill a slow afternoon.

Pigeon Forge's sights are mostly built for fun, such as the half-scale Titanic and the illusion museums. Its genuine piece of history is the 1830 Old Mill, still grinding flour, and the old log cabins and churches inside the national park.

Orlando has an actual night out. Downtown along Orange Avenue and around Wall Street Plaza, a university crowd keeps bars and clubs going late at weekends, Ivanhoe Village has a relaxed gay scene, and Disney Springs and CityWalk suit visitors who want an easy drink near the hotel.

Pigeon Forge's evenings are go-karts, dinner shows and lit-up attraction complexes that empty around ten. Drinks mean a sports bar, a brewpub or a moonshine tasting room. Adults wanting more drive to Gatlinburg or settle into the cabin hot tub.

Pigeon Forge sits at the door of the Great Smoky Mountains, with forested ridges above 2,000m, trails from Laurel Falls to Mount LeConte, the Appalachian Trail along the crest and black bears in Cades Cove. Spring wildflowers and October colour are reasons in themselves to go.

Orlando's outdoors is flat and watery: kayaking at Wekiwa Springs, manatees at Blue Spring in winter, airboats among alligators and fine birdwatching at Merritt Island. It is pleasant for a morning, but the summer heat limits it and there is nothing to climb.

Orlando's outings carry more weight. The Kennedy Space Center, with the Saturn V and the shuttle Atlantis, is about an hour away, and St Augustine's Spanish fort and old streets, Tampa's Ybor City and the Dalí Museum in St Petersburg each make a full day.

From Pigeon Forge, Asheville and the Biltmore Estate are the best day out, and Knoxville's Market Square and the Cherokee museum over Newfound Gap are good second choices. Beyond Gatlinburg's craft studios, the list of places worth the drive gets short quickly.

Both towns exist for families, but Orlando works on another scale. Four Disney parks plus water parks, Universal's film worlds for teenagers, SeaWorld and Legoland for younger children can fill two weeks without repeating a day, and Disney's own boats, buses and monorail mean families can manage without a car.

Pigeon Forge centres on Dollywood, with its coasters, crafts and seasonal festivals, plus mountain coasters, zip lines and easy waterfall walks with a chance of bears. Its big group cabins and relaxed Southern welcome are real strengths, but there is less to do overall.

You need a car in both, but Pigeon Forge asks less of you. Everything lies along one Parkway, and a trolley runs its length and on to Gatlinburg, which helps on busy days, even if it is slow and the cabins and trailheads are beyond it.

Orlando spreads its parks, hotels, airport and downtown across many miles of Interstate 4 and toll roads, with buses that are of little use to visitors. Staying inside Disney or Universal is the only real way to go without a car.

Orlando is the stronger shopping trip, with two large premium outlet centres for American and designer brands, luxury labels at the Mall at Millenia and the boutiques of Park Avenue in Winter Park.

Pigeon Forge's outlets stop at mid-market brands and there is no fashion to speak of. What it has that Orlando lacks is handmade work: quilts and pottery around the Old Mill and broom, basket and leather studios in the hills above Gatlinburg.

Pigeon Forge is the cheaper of the two. A large cabin shared between families works out cheaply per head, buffets and breakfast houses are inexpensive, and a day in the national park costs very little. The expense is the paid attractions.

In Orlando, rooms on International Drive and in Kissimmee are fair, but several days of park tickets, express passes, park meals and parking add up fast, and staying on-site costs noticeably more. Both need a car and expect a tip on top of the bill.

Both towns have plenty of shows, of very different kinds. Orlando has a conventional arts scene, with touring Broadway and the Orlando Philharmonic at the Dr. Phillips Center, Shakespeare in Loch Haven Park and the spring Fringe, alongside polished park shows and fireworks.

Pigeon Forge is all homegrown entertainment: dozens of Parkway theatres with country and gospel revues, comedy and dinner shows, and bluegrass on Dollywood's stages. It is broader and more sentimental, with no orchestra or serious theatre.

Orlando's idea of rest is a resort pool, while Pigeon Forge's is a cabin porch. In Orlando the big hotels around Lake Buena Vista and the Disney and Universal resorts have full spas, lazy rivers and landscaped pools, so a massage or a slow day between parks is easy to arrange. For a quieter afternoon, couples can go to Winter Park, with its lakes and tree-lined streets.

Pigeon Forge has only a handful of day spas and resort spas. Its calm comes from the wooded hillside rentals, with rocking chairs on the porch, a fireplace and a private hot tub facing the ridges. The higher up you book, away from the neon and traffic of the Parkway, the quieter your evenings will be.