Pigeon Forge or Tampa?

On beaches, Tampa wins easily. Pigeon Forge has no coast at all, so swimming there means Douglas Lake in summer, the boulder pools of mountain streams or the water park beside Dollywood.

Tampa's own bay shore is mostly seawall, but Clearwater, St Pete Beach, Fort De Soto and Caladesi Island are all within an hour's drive, with soft white sand and calm, warm water. You have to drive for every beach day, but the beaches are among the best reasons to come.

Tampa eats far better. Its cooking grew out of the immigrant community in Ybor City's cigar factories, so it has a real local tradition: the pressed Cuban sandwich with salami, deviled crab croquettes, café con leche in old bakeries, and grouper and stone crab along the bay.

Pigeon Forge means pancake houses, Southern buffets, barbecue and chains along the Parkway. The food is filling but rarely more than that, and its only local touches are moonshine tastings and fudge by the Old Mill. Neither city is strong at the top end, but only in Tampa does a meal give you a sense of place.

Tampa has more to see, though neither city is a major draw for culture. Ybor City's brick cigar factories and Latin social clubs, the Moorish minarets of Henry Plant's 1891 hotel and the art and history museums by the river make two or three good days.

The sights in Pigeon Forge are built to entertain, from the half-scale Titanic to the illusion museums, and the 1830 Old Mill is its one real piece of history. For the region's past, you go to the log cabins and churches of the national park.

Tampa is the place for a night out. Seventh Avenue in Ybor City has clubs that stay open late, SoHo has cocktail bars and patios, and the Riverwalk has rooftop bars and taprooms. Every winter, the Gasparilla pirate invasion fills the bayfront with one of Florida's biggest street parties.

Evenings in Pigeon Forge belong to families: dinner shows, go-karts and lit-up attraction complexes that wind down around ten. Adults who want a drink find a few brewpubs and moonshine rooms, or drive to Gatlinburg.

Pigeon Forge is far stronger for the outdoors, though the town itself sits in a plain valley. Half an hour away, the Great Smoky Mountains rise to more than 2,000m. There are forest trails from Laurel Falls up to Mount LeConte, bears to spot in Cades Cove, wildflowers in spring and changing leaves in October.

Tampa's land is flat, and its outdoor pleasures are on the water: kayaking through cypress swamp on the Hillsborough River, mangrove tunnels, dolphins, manatees in winter and the clear springs around Crystal River. It all feels gentler, and it is best from winter into spring, before the summer heat sets in.

Tampa has the wider choice. The Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, the Greek sponge docks of Tarpon Springs, the Ringling estate in Sarasota and the Frank Lloyd Wright campus in Lakeland make a varied list, all reached by car.

From Pigeon Forge, the best outings are Knoxville's Market Square, Cherokee across the mountains and the Biltmore Estate in Asheville. Asheville makes a long day, and after these three the list soon runs thin.

Both work very well for children, but in different ways. Pigeon Forge is a whole town built around family fun: Dollywood with its coasters, crafts and seasonal festivals, plus go-karts, mountain coasters, large cabins for groups and easy waterfall walks in the park.

Tampa combines theme parks and animals, with Busch Gardens, the manatees at ZooTampa and the Florida Aquarium, and adds calm, shallow Gulf beaches that suit small children. In both, every outing means a drive, and the summer heat makes spring and autumn the easier seasons.

Both need a car, and neither is easy without one. Pigeon Forge is one long multi-lane strip with a slow trolley up the Parkway to Gatlinburg, and only a car will get you to the trailheads or the hillside cabins. Traffic crawls in summer, in October and over Christmas.

Tampa at least has a walkable core, where a streetcar links downtown, the Channel District and Ybor City, and the Riverwalk follows the water. Beyond that, reaching the beaches and parks means bridges, interstates and rush-hour traffic.

Tampa has somewhat more range. A large upscale mall carries the luxury and department-store brands, Hyde Park Village has open-air boutiques, and the cigars hand-rolled in Ybor City are a genuine local craft.

Pigeon Forge means outlet malls and souvenirs and has no fashion shopping at all. Its mountain crafts are still worth looking for: pottery, quilts and cornmeal by the Old Mill, and brooms, baskets and woodwork from the studios above Gatlinburg.

Pigeon Forge is a little easier on the wallet. With thousands of motel rooms, and big cabins that families can share, lodging is cheap per head, and breakfast houses and buffets cost little, though theme park days and dinner shows soon add up.

Tampa costs about what an average American city does. Beach hotels cost the most in the winter and spring high season, and summer is cheaper. Cuban sandwich counters keep lunch affordable, but in both places the car and the theme parks are the big expenses.

There are plenty of shows in both, but of very different kinds. The theatres on Pigeon Forge's Parkway stage country and gospel revues, comedy, magic and dinner spectacles every night, and Dollywood adds bluegrass on its stages. It is all broad and family-friendly.

Tampa's programme is more conventional: touring Broadway shows, opera, ballet and plays at the Straz Center, the Florida Orchestra, concerts in the ornate 1926 Tampa Theatre and indie gigs in Ybor City. Choose by taste, since neither has more on than the other.

Neither is a spa destination, and in both the calm is found away from the centre. In Pigeon Forge that means a hillside cabin with a porch, a fireplace and a hot tub looking out over the ridges, well away from the neon of the Parkway.

In Tampa it means a resort spa, or a stay on the Gulf islands where sunsets and long lunches set the pace, away from the humid, car-bound city.