Acapulco or Guadalajara?

This is the one category where Acapulco is in a different league. Its whole layout follows the curve of the bay, with sandy city beaches at Condesa and Icacos, calm family coves at Caleta and Caletilla, and sheltered water at Puerto Marqués. Just stay out of the rough surf at Revolcadero.

Guadalajara has no beach at all. Lake Chapala is too shallow and murky for swimming, so in the city a swim means a hotel pool or a spring-fed balneario. Visitors who want sand add a few days around Puerto Vallarta.

Guadalajara is a city people travel to for its food, while in Acapulco the good cooking takes some seeking out. Acapulco's best dishes are coastal Guerrero ones: pescado a la talla grilled over wood at Barra Vieja, ceviche in a tomato sauce, and green pozole on Thursdays. Away from these, the Costera is mostly chains and tourist seafood places.

Guadalajara is the home of birria, the torta ahogada and carne en su jugo, eaten at street stands and in the upstairs stalls of San Juan de Dios. Add tequila and cantaritos and a modern dining scene in Colonia Americana and Providencia, and eating becomes a main reason for the trip.

Acapulco's sights fill a day: the Fuerte de San Diego and its history museum, the cliff divers at La Quebrada, Diego Rivera's mosaics on the Casa de los Vientos, and the cathedral with its almost Byzantine domes. Most of its character lies in mid-century resort glamour rather than in museums.

Guadalajara has a real historic centre, with a cross of plazas around the cathedral, the Teatro Degollado and the Hospicio Cabañas, a World Heritage Site where Orozco's Man of Fire fills the chapel dome. Add Colonia Americana's mansions and Tlaquepaque's colonial streets, and two or three days pass easily.

Going out is easy in both cities, but the nights are different. Acapulco's are loud and mainstream, with beach bars, terraces and hillside clubs along the Costera that run until dawn. The strip is at its busiest when crowds drive down from Mexico City for long weekends and at Easter and Christmas, and it can feel half empty midweek.

Guadalajara's nights are shaped by its students and offer more variety. There are mezcal and craft-beer bars around Avenida Chapultepec, old cantinas that serve snacks with drinks, one of Mexico's best-known LGBTQ+ scenes, and dressier clubs in Providencia and Zapopan.

Both offer a fair amount of nature, but in very different settings. Acapulco's is coastal: the horseshoe bay seen from the Scenic Highway, snorkelling and diving around Roqueta, deep-sea fishing for marlin, and mangrove boat rides on Coyuca Lagoon. Inland, the heat makes hiking hard work.

Guadalajara is the place for walking. Bosque La Primavera has oak and pine trails and mountain biking, the Huentitán canyon offers a steep hike down to the Río Santiago, and Lake Chapala has hills for birdwatching, all in drier, cooler air.

Acapulco is a poor base for outings. Pie de la Cuesta and Barra Vieja are half-day trips on the edge of town, and Taxco is far enough away that it works better as an overnight stay.

Guadalajara is well placed. Tequila and its World Heritage agave fields, Ajijic on Lake Chapala and the round Guachimontones pyramids are each within about ninety minutes. Further out, the cooler mountain villages of Tapalpa and Mazamitla make a good fuller day.

Guadalajara has the edge with children, largely because of its climate and its range of attractions. The large zoo above the Huentitán canyon, the rides at Selva Mágica, the Trompo Mágico children's museum and the Acuario Michin give plenty of variety, and the mild weather is easier on small children than the coast.

Acapulco offers a simpler resort stay: shallow water at Caleta and Caletilla, boats to Roqueta, the CICI water park and hotel kids' clubs. However, the heat, the traffic and the dangerous open-ocean surf mean most families stay inside their resort.

Acapulco is one long strip along the Costera, with steep hills behind it and no rail at all. Buses and taxis run the length of the bay, but the old town and Diamante are too far apart to walk between, and taxis are the usual choice after dark.

Guadalajara gives you more options. Its historic centre and Colonia Americana are pleasant on foot, the light rail and Mi Macro bus corridors cover some useful routes out to Zapopan and Tlaquepaque, and cheap ride-hailing covers the rest.

Guadalajara is a real shopping destination for crafts. It has the ceramics and blown-glass galleries of Tlaquepaque, Tonalá's street market of hand-painted pottery, three floors of leather and boots at San Juan de Dios, and luxury malls around Andares.

In Acapulco, shopping is mostly souvenirs and beachwear. The artisan market near the old town is worth a visit for Taxco silver and Olinalá lacquerware, as long as you bargain and check the quality.

Both are inexpensive by international standards, and the difference lies in what your money buys. In Acapulco it goes on a beach-view room in an older Costera hotel or a reasonably priced all-inclusive, though prices rise in Diamante and over Easter and Christmas. In Guadalajara it goes on street food, cheap ride-hailing and central hotels with few tourist mark-ups, and many of the plazas and murals cost nothing to see.

Mariachi links the two cities, but Guadalajara is where it comes from. There it is everyday music in the Plaza de los Mariachis and around El Parián's bandstand in Tlaquepaque. The Teatro Degollado adds the Jalisco Philharmonic and the university's Ballet Folclórico.

In Acapulco, live performance mostly means trios playing for diners, folk-dance shows in hotels and pop stars on tour in Diamante. Apart from occasional concerts by the Philharmonic, there is no regular arts season.

Neither city is built for rest, so the difference is in the kind of rest each offers. In Acapulco it means a resort spa in Diamante or Las Brisas, a massage on the beach, or a clifftop hotel pool far from the noise of the Costera.

Around Guadalajara, the volcanic ground provides thermal balnearios by Bosque La Primavera and Lake Chapala, as well as temazcal steam lodges. Slow days in Ajijic make a gentle escape from the city.