Cancun or Montego Bay?

Both have warm, clear Caribbean water, but Cancun's beach is on a much bigger scale. The Hotel Zone is one continuous stretch of pale coral sand. It is calm and shallow along the northern arm by Playa Tortugas and rougher on the open eastern shore past Chac Mool and Delfines, and Playa Norte on Isla Mujeres is a short ferry ride away. The one drawback is the sargassum seaweed that washes up in some summers.

In Montego Bay the sand comes in smaller pieces: Doctor's Cave and Cornwall beaches on the Hip Strip, plus resort coves at Rose Hall and Ironshore, with the reef keeping the water calm. For a really long beach you have to go to Negril, about an hour and a half away.

Neither is a place for serious dining, and in both many visitors eat most of their meals at the resort buffet. Montego Bay has a slight edge on flavour. Jerk pork and chicken smoked over pimento wood at roadside pits, patties, curry goat and escovitch fish make the simplest meals the best ones.

In Cancun the good eating is downtown rather than on the beach, at the taco stands, the stalls by Parque de las Palapas and the halls of Mercado 28. Yucatecan dishes such as cochinita pibil and sopa de lima are a real discovery if you only know standard Mexican food.

Montego Bay has more history to see in town, though not a great deal. The Rose Hall and Greenwood great houses tell the plantation story, Sam Sharpe Square remembers the 1831 rebellion, and Falmouth's Georgian streets are close by.

Cancun was built as a resort from the 1970s and has little beyond the Maya Museum and the small San Miguelito, El Rey and El Meco ruins. Its real heritage is at the great Maya sites inland, and those are excursions rather than sights in town.

Cancun is the place for a big night out. The huge clubs of the Party Center have stage shows and open-bar wristbands and keep going until four or five in the morning, though they all aim at the same crowd. Downtown bars around Avenida Tulum are the cheaper, local alternative.

Montego Bay's scene is smaller and centres on the open-air bars of the Hip Strip. Its best nights are local ones, street dances and waterfront parties with dancehall and reggae sound systems at weekends. These are best visited with someone who knows them.

Both put the reef first, but the land behind it is very different. Around Cancun it is flat limestone scrub, so the outdoors means water. You can snorkel or dive on the Mesoamerican Reef and over the MUSA sculptures, swim in the cenotes along the Ruta de los Cenotes, join the whale shark trips in summer, or kayak through the Nichupte mangroves.

Montego Bay has green hills behind its marine park. That means bamboo rafting on the Martha Brae, zip lines through old estates, hummingbirds feeding from your hand at Rocklands and guided walks into Cockpit Country. Neither has long-distance hiking.

Cancun has more places within reach, and the roads to them are easier. Chichen Itza, Coba and Ek Balam put some of the finest Maya sites within a long day, Valladolid adds a colonial town, and the coast offers Isla Mujeres, Playa del Carmen and the cliff-top ruins of Tulum.

From Montego Bay the choice is narrower and the winding roads are slower. Falmouth is the easy short outing. Negril, Ocho Rios, Nine Mile and the Appleton Estate each take a full day, so most visitors manage only one or two.

Cancun is far easier with children. Besides kids' clubs and shallow pools, it has calm bay beaches, an aquarium and big eco-parks down the coast that can fill whole days. The summer heat and the currents on the eastern shore need care.

Montego Bay's resorts look after children well, and rafting, glass-bottom boats and the Rocklands hummingbirds make good outings. Outside the hotel there is little built for families, though, and the chaotic traffic and persistent vendors keep most families close to their hotel.

Neither is a city for walking, and in both you take taxis and agree the fare first. Cancun at least has a simple backbone: frequent buses along Boulevard Kukulcan to downtown, comfortable ADO coaches down the coast, and straight roads on the peninsula that make a hire car easy.

Montego Bay's one advantage is the airport right beside the Hip Strip. Beyond that, the resorts are spread along the coast and the route taxis are hard for visitors to work out. Driving is on the left on narrow roads, which puts most people off, so shuttles and tours do the work.

Cancun has more shops, though they are mostly air-conditioned malls in the Hotel Zone selling international labels and duty-free goods, plus the Mercado 28 stalls for hammocks, huipiles and silver. Montego Bay has the Harbour Street craft market and duty-free shops near the cruise port, and its best buys are things to eat and drink: Blue Mountain coffee, jerk seasoning and rum. Neither is worth choosing for shopping.

Both are priced for North American visitors, but Cancun gives you more ways to save. Downtown has taco stands, small hotels away from the sand, local buses and ADO coaches, so a stay can be kept fairly modest.

In Montego Bay most beds are in resorts, and tourist taxis and excursions add up, with little cheap public transport a visitor can easily use. Roadside jerk and patties are the main way to save, which is why an all-inclusive package often makes more sense there.

Montego Bay has a real musical identity of its own. Reggae and dancehall are the local sounds, Reggae Sumfest brings a week of big stage shows each summer, and the rest of the year there are bar bands and some local acts.

Cancun's entertainment is staged for visitors: folkloric dinner shows, nightly resort shows and the evening spectacles at the eco-parks, with only occasional music in the downtown squares. Neither has theatre or classical music worth travelling for.

Both are places for a resort spa, but Cancun's spas are more developed, with hydrotherapy circuits and ocean-view treatment rooms. It also has a tradition of its own in the temazcal, the Maya sweat lodge. For real quiet, the far south of the Hotel Zone, Isla Mujeres or Puerto Morelos get you away from the traffic on the boulevard.

Montego Bay's draw is its many adults-only resorts and open-air treatment pavilions by the sea. It has no bathing tradition of its own, and outside the hotel the town is noisy, so how calm your stay is depends on the resort you pick.