Bacalar or Huatulco?

Huatulco wins clearly on beaches. Its coves have golden sand between rocky headlands, from Santa Cruz and Chahué by the town to wilder Cacaluta, which you reach by boat or forest path. A morning boat tour can stop at several bays that have no road. Swimmers stay in the sheltered coves, because the open coast beyond them can have strong surf.

Bacalar offers something different: a freshwater lagoon with a white limestone bed and calm, clear water in many shades of blue. You get in from jetties and balnearios, or float down the current at Los Rápidos. It has hardly any sand, though, and the nearest Caribbean beach at Mahahual is a long drive away.

Neither place is worth a trip just for the food, but Huatulco gives you more to enjoy. Its Oaxacan cooking includes mole, tlayudas and tamales wrapped in banana leaf, with mezcal and coffee from the nearby hills. The best meals are at the market and family-run fondas in La Crucecita, or at palapas grilling whole fish on the bays.

Bacalar serves good, simple Yucatán food, such as cochinita pibil, panuchos and sopa de lima, in taquerías around the square. The choice is narrow, though, and by the end of a week you will be eating at the same few lakeside places again.

There is very little sightseeing in either place, and each can be seen in a morning. Bacalar's main sight is real history: an eighteenth-century fort built against pirates, with ramparts over the lagoon and a small museum. Huatulco is a planned resort. It offers the large painted dome of La Crucecita's church and the Copalita park, where a small pre-Hispanic ceremonial site is combined with a forest walk to a clifftop lookout.

Neither is a party town, but Huatulco has more going on after dinner. La Crucecita has mezcal bars and a few places with dancing around its plaza, there are beachfront bars by the Santa Cruz marina, and the town gets busier in the winter high season. Bacalar has a few bars by the square and the lake and drinks in the hostels, then goes quiet early because most people are up at dawn to paddle.

Huatulco has more variety outdoors. Much of its coast is a national park, where dry forest meets cliffs, sea arches and coral you can snorkel or dive. Humpback whales pass offshore in winter and turtles nest on nearby beaches. Inland there is rafting on the Copalita River, as well as waterfalls and coffee farms in the Sierra Sur.

Bacalar's nature is almost all the lagoon: more than 40km of water edged with mangroves, best seen by kayak, along with the Bird Island sanctuary and ancient stromatolites in the shallows. Away from the water the country is flat, hot forest with few trails.

Bacalar has better day trips, mainly for anyone interested in the Maya. Chacchoben's temples are less than an hour away, Kohunlich's stucco masks and Dzibanché make a good day together, and Chetumal has a good museum of Maya culture. You will need a car or a tour for most of them.

Huatulco's best outings go along the coast instead, to small villages such as Mazunte, with its turtle centre, laid-back Zipolite and Puerto Ángel, or further on to the surf town of Puerto Escondido. Oaxaca city's heritage is too far for a day trip.

Huatulco is easier with children. Tangolunda's resorts have pools and kids' clubs, and in bays such as La Entrega children can snorkel among fish close to the shore. Still, there is no zoo or theme park, so older children may get restless after a week.

In Bacalar, children love the warm, waveless lagoon and jumping off the docks, but there is almost nothing else for them. Pavements are scarce and the humid heat makes walking tiring. It works best with a lodge that has its own dock and with children old enough to paddle a kayak.

You need wheels in both places, but for different reasons. In Bacalar, the centre is a few walkable blocks, but the lodgings, balnearios and Cenote Azul are strung along kilometres of shore road with little room for walking. A bicycle helps, and a hire car is worth it for the ruins.

In Huatulco the bays are short drives apart. Plentiful taxis and colectivos make it easy to manage without a car, and you rent one only for the coast villages or the coffee hills.

Bacalar's few stalls near the main square sell hammocks, embroidered cotton and beachwear, and for anything practical you have to go to Chetumal. Huatulco has more worth taking home, because its markets in La Crucecita and Santa Cruz sell crafts from across Oaxaca: embroidered blouses, black pottery and carved alebrijes, along with mezcal and coffee from the hills. Serious craft buyers still save their money for Oaxaca city.

Costs are much the same, and in both places they depend on where you sleep. In Bacalar, guesthouses, bicycle hire and shared boat trips on the lagoon are cheap, but the lakeside lodges with private docks that draw many visitors are priced like the Caribbean coast. Huatulco stays cheap if you base yourself in La Crucecita and eat at the market. The all-inclusive resorts at Tangolunda and the boat tours cost much more, especially in the winter high season.

There is nothing here to plan an evening around, in either town. In Bacalar it goes no further than a band in a bar or some music on the main square at weekends. Huatulco adds Oaxacan folk dance shows in the resorts and dancing on La Crucecita's plaza during festivals, which give you a little regional colour.

Bacalar is the better place to switch off. Days follow the light, many lakeside lodges are completely quiet, and yoga classes, short retreats, massage and the temazcal steam ceremony are offered around the lagoon. It has no large spas, so the rest comes from the setting more than from treatments.

Huatulco suits people who like to be pampered. The resorts at Tangolunda and Conejos have full spas, and you can also take a temazcal there. It is calm and low-rise, but it has fewer retreats and more of a resort routine than Bacalar's slow lagoon days.