Pigeon Forge or Washington DC?

Neither place is for a beach vacation, and both are far from the sea. What differs is the kind of water. Pigeon Forge has freshwater swimming at Douglas Lake, rock pools in the mountain streams and the water park beside Dollywood. Washington's nearest sand is on the warm, brackish Chesapeake around Annapolis, about an hour away, and the Atlantic resorts are far enough off to need a weekend.

Washington is by far the better place to eat. You can have Ethiopian cooking around Shaw and U Street, pupusas in Columbia Heights, the half-smoke, Chesapeake crabs and oysters in season, and long grazing stops at Eastern Market and Union Market. Its tasting-menu kitchens give a top end that Pigeon Forge does not have.

Pigeon Forge feeds people generously rather than well. The Parkway has pancake houses, Southern buffets, barbecue and chain steakhouses, and the only local touches are moonshine tastings and fudge from around the Old Mill. For serious Appalachian cooking you drive to Knoxville or Asheville.

This is the widest gap between the two. On Washington's Mall the Smithsonian museums, the National Gallery and the great memorials are all within walking distance of each other, and most of them are free. The Library of Congress and Arlington Cemetery add more, and a week barely covers it all.

Pigeon Forge offers entertainment rather than heritage: a half-scale Titanic, illusion museums and car collections. Its real history is the Old Mill of 1830 and the craft workshops at Dollywood. The log cabins and churches in the national park make a better outing for anyone curious about the past.

Washington has a real night out, busiest from Thursday to Saturday. There are cocktail bars and rooftops along 14th Street and U Street, late drinking in Adams Morgan, dive bars on H Street and the long-established LGBTQ+ scene around Dupont Circle.

Pigeon Forge winds down at about ten, after the dinner shows and go-kart tracks close. Adults have a few brewpubs and moonshine tasting rooms, or a drive to Gatlinburg.

Pigeon Forge has the stronger outdoors because the Great Smoky Mountains start half an hour up the road. The park has forested ridges above 2,000m, the Appalachian Trail, the Alum Cave climb and easy wildlife spotting in Cades Cove. The town itself is a strip in a valley, so every outing starts with a drive.

Washington is unusually green for a capital. Rock Creek Park, the C&O Canal towpath and the gorge at Great Falls are close enough to walk or cycle to. Its real mountains, Shenandoah and the Blue Ridge, are an hour and a half or more away.

Washington is surrounded by history. Old Town Alexandria is a short Metro ride away, and Mount Vernon, Baltimore and Annapolis are each within about an hour. Gettysburg, Antietam and Harpers Ferry cover the Civil War, and Philadelphia makes a long day by fast train.

Pigeon Forge has a shorter list: Gatlinburg next door, Knoxville's Market Square, and Cherokee over Newfound Gap. The best long day is Asheville and the Biltmore Estate. After those come small towns and quiet valleys, and you need a car for all of them.

Both work well with children, but in opposite ways. Pigeon Forge is built for play, with Dollywood's coasters and seasonal festivals, the water park, mountain coasters and large cabins for groups. The catch is that everything lies along one road you have to drive, often in slow traffic.

Washington teaches more than it thrills. There are dinosaurs and rockets in the free Smithsonian museums, the free National Zoo, and the Mall for running about on, and the Metro is easy with a buggy. It has no theme parks, though, and the walks between monuments are hot in summer.

Washington is much easier to get around. The centre is a flat grid, the Metro is clean with lifts at every station, and bike-share and riverside paths link the monuments, so you need a car only for the countryside. The weak points are Georgetown, which has no station, and trains that run less often late at night.

In Pigeon Forge a car is essential. The Parkway is a long multi-lane strip where you can walk only inside each attraction complex, the trolley is slow and does not reach the cabins, and traffic crawls in summer, in October and over Christmas.

Neither city is worth the trip for shopping, but Washington has more variety. Georgetown has boutiques and antique shops in old brick buildings, CityCenterDC has luxury labels, and Union Market and the Smithsonian museum shops are good for gifts.

Pigeon Forge is mostly outlet malls, fudge and T-shirts. Its saving grace is the quilts, pottery and cornmeal around the Old Mill and the craft studios above Gatlinburg, a craft tradition Washington does not have.

Pigeon Forge is the cheaper place to stay. Thousands of motel rooms and cabins keep lodging reasonable outside the busy weeks, a cabin shared by two families is cheap per head, and breakfast houses cost little. The money goes on Dollywood, dinner shows and the car.

Washington is the other way round. Hotels and restaurants are expensive all year, but the museums, zoo and memorials are free, so a day of sightseeing costs almost nothing. Staying across the river in Arlington can bring down the cost of a room.

Washington has much more to offer on stage. Arena Stage, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, the Folger and Ford's Theatre cover plays old and new, and the National Symphony and the opera give a full classical season. U Street's restored theatres and Wolf Trap's lawn concerts in summer take care of music.

Pigeon Forge puts on plenty of shows every night, but all of one kind: country and gospel revues, comedy, magic and dinner shows along the Parkway, with bluegrass at Dollywood. It is cheerful family entertainment, with no classical music or serious theatre.

Neither has a spa tradition, and both have only a scattering of hotel and day spas. The difference is where you find rest. In Pigeon Forge it is a cabin high above the strip, with a porch, a fireplace and a private hot tub. In Washington it is an early walk round the Tidal Basin or a quiet hour at Dumbarton Oaks or the National Arboretum between busy days.