Pigeon Forge or Virginia Beach?

This is the widest gap between the two. Pigeon Forge is far inland in the Tennessee foothills, so swimming means the shore of Douglas Lake, a reservoir, a wading pool in a mountain stream or the water park beside Dollywood.

Virginia Beach is on the Atlantic, with a long sweep of pale sand backed by a boardwalk and surf near the fishing pier. It also has calmer Chesapeake Bay water at First Landing for toddlers and dunes at Sandbridge. The catch is that the swimming season only covers the warm months.

Neither town is a food destination, but Virginia Beach has something of its own to eat. Oysters from Lynnhaven Inlet and Chesapeake blue crab, in crab cakes or she-crab soup, are worth finding at the dockside places on the bay side.

Pigeon Forge eats big and simple: all-morning pancake breakfasts, Southern buffets with fried chicken and cobbler, barbecue, and moonshine tastings along the Parkway. For a more ambitious dinner, Pigeon Forge sends you to Knoxville or Asheville, and Virginia Beach sends you to Norfolk.

Virginia Beach has more history, though not a great deal. Cape Henry, where English colonists landed in 1607, and the Old Cape Henry Lighthouse give it a real link to the beginnings of English America, and the Adam Thoroughgood House is a rare early colonial home.

The sights in Pigeon Forge are built for fun, such as the half-scale Titanic and the illusion museums. Its one real historic building is the Old Mill of 1830. For mountain heritage, look to the log cabins and churches in the national park and the crafts shown at Dollywood.

Virginia Beach is the place to go out, at least in summer. Atlantic Avenue and the boardwalk fill with beach bars, rooftop decks and sports bars, loud and casual, and Town Center has quieter cocktail lounges.

Pigeon Forge winds down at about ten. Its evenings are for dinner shows and go-karts rather than drinks, and adults wanting a bar drive up to Gatlinburg. Virginia Beach also has a better scene nearby, in Norfolk's Ghent.

Pigeon Forge has the real landscape. The Great Smoky Mountains begin about half an hour away, with forested ridges, waterfall walks such as Laurel Falls and the Appalachian Trail along the crest. Bears and wild turkey are easy to spot in Cades Cove, wildflowers come out in spring and the forests turn colour in October.

The outdoors at Virginia Beach are flat and mostly about water. There is maritime forest and cypress swamp at First Landing, and marsh and empty shore at Back Bay and False Cape. In summer you can kayak out to watch dolphins or go surfing. It is good country for paddling and cycling, but there is nothing to climb.

Virginia Beach has the better day trips. The best is Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown, about an hour away, which together make a full day of serious history. Norfolk's battleship and art museum, Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks and Richmond add more.

From Pigeon Forge the best day out is Asheville and the Biltmore Estate. Closer in are Knoxville's Market Square, the crafts loop above Gatlinburg and Cherokee over Newfound Gap. It is a pleasant list, but it has much less history than the Virginia coast.

Both work very well with children, in very different settings. Pigeon Forge is a theme-park town built around Dollywood, with its rides, music shows and seasonal festivals. Mountain coasters and zip lines add to it, and large cabins can house several families together.

Virginia Beach is the seaside version: sand, gentle bay water for toddlers and the Virginia Aquarium with its sea turtles and otters. The amusement park and costumed tradespeople of Williamsburg are within an hour. You need a car in both, and both are hot in summer.

Neither is easy without a car, but Virginia Beach is the less awkward of the two. If you stay at the Oceanfront, you can walk or cycle the boardwalk and take the summer trolley along Atlantic Avenue for a vacation spent mostly on the sand.

Pigeon Forge is one long multi-lane strip where you cannot walk between attractions. Its slow trolley does not reach the hillside cabins, and the national park trailheads can only be reached by car. In summer, October and the Christmas weeks, traffic on the Parkway turns even short trips into slow ones.

In both towns shopping is a sideline of much the same kind, mostly American chains and souvenirs. The difference is in the local specialities. Pigeon Forge has outlet malls along the Parkway and real mountain crafts, with pottery and quilts by the Old Mill and broom, basket and woodwork studios in the hills above Gatlinburg.

Virginia Beach has a regional mall and the outdoor streets of Town Center. Its own speciality is surf shops, which have deep roots on the Oceanfront.

Overall costs are much the same, but the money goes on different things. In Pigeon Forge there are plenty of rooms, a shared cabin is cheap per person and buffets cost little, but theme park days and dinner shows soon add up.

In Virginia Beach the beach, boardwalk and state parks are free or close to it. Summer oceanfront rooms and beach houses are expensive, though they drop sharply out of season. You need a car in both, and a tip is expected on every restaurant bill.

Pigeon Forge puts on far more shows, though mostly of one kind. Dozens of theatres on the Parkway stage country and gospel revues, comedy, magic and big dinner shows every night, and Dollywood has bluegrass and gospel through the day. It is broad family entertainment, with no classical music or serious theatre.

Virginia Beach has less in town, mainly touring rock and country acts at its outdoor amphitheatre and free concerts on the boardwalk. Norfolk, half an hour away, adds the Virginia Opera, the Virginia Symphony and the Virginia Arts Festival each spring.

Neither town has a bathing tradition, and in both the spas are limited to resort hotels and a few day spas. The calm comes from different places. In Pigeon Forge it is a hillside cabin with a porch, a fireplace and a private hot tub looking over the ridges, well away from the neon of the Parkway.

In Virginia Beach it is an early walk on the boardwalk, or a visit in spring or autumn when the resort is quiet. In high summer it is crowded and loud.