Cancun or Puerto Vallarta?

Cancun has the stronger beaches by a clear margin. Its seven-shaped Hotel Zone gives some 22km of fine, pale coral sand that stays cool underfoot, with gentle water on the bay side around Playa Langosta and open Caribbean surf along the eastern shore, plus Playa Norte on Isla Mujeres a short ferry away.

Puerto Vallarta's sand is coarser and golden, and the town beaches such as Playa Los Muertos are busier and narrower. Its charm lies in variety: rocky pools at Conchas Chinas, small coves reached by water taxi, the flat calm sands of Nuevo Vallarta and surf beaches within an hour. Summer rain can cloud the bay, while Cancun's occasional risk is sargassum on the eastern side.

Puerto Vallarta eats noticeably better. Pacific seafood is the thread, from pescado zarandeado grilled over wood on the sand to raw shrimp aguachile and marlin tacos at evening carts, and there is a real tier of chef-run restaurants in the hills as well.

In Cancun the Hotel Zone mostly offers buffets and international menus, so good food means taking the bus downtown to the taco stands, Parque de las Palapas and the markets. There the Yucatecan cooking, cochinita pibil, sopa de lima and habanero salsas, is genuinely distinctive, but the choice is narrower.

Neither is a sightseeing destination, but Puerto Vallarta at least has an old town to wander. Its whitewashed, red-tiled streets climb behind the centre, the Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe has its crown-topped tower, and the Malecón with its bronze sculptures makes a fine evening walk.

Cancun was built as a resort from the 1970s and has almost no historic fabric. The Maya Museum and the small San Miguelito ruins fill an afternoon, and anyone interested in Maya heritage uses the city as a base for trips out.

Both cities go out late, but in very different styles. Cancun's nights are concentrated in the Party Center at the bend of the Hotel Zone, where huge clubs stage acrobatic shows and confetti drops on open-bar wristbands until four or five in the morning, a spring-break formula with little variety.

Puerto Vallarta spreads its evenings between open-fronted dance clubs along the Malecón and the rooftop and mezcal bars of the Zona Romántica, home to one of Latin America's largest gay scenes. It has more character, though it quietens markedly in the hot, rainy summer.

Puerto Vallarta has the richer outdoors because it has land as well as water. The jungle-covered Sierra Madre rises straight behind town, with coastal trails, river canyons, a botanical garden and mountain biking, while the bay brings calving humpback whales from December to March and snorkelling at Los Arcos and the Marietas Islands.

Cancun is flat limestone scrub, so its outdoors happens in water: the Mesoamerican Reef, the underwater sculptures of MUSA, the cenotes inland and whale sharks in summer. It offers excellent snorkelling and diving but no hiking to speak of.

Cancun has the stronger list of excursions, led by the great Maya sites. Chichen Itza makes a long, early day, often paired with Valladolid and a cenote, while Coba and Ek Balam sit in jungle, and the coast offers Isla Mujeres, Playa del Carmen and Tulum's clifftop ruins.

Puerto Vallarta's outings are smaller in scale. The beach villages of Bucerías, Sayulita and San Pancho lie to the north, boat-only Yelapa to the south, and the old silver-mining town of San Sebastián del Oeste up in the pines is the standout inland. Guadalajara is too far for a day.

Cancun is the easier family choice. Its resorts are built around children, with kids' clubs, shallow pools and forgiving buffets, the bay beaches are calm for small swimmers, and the aquarium and eco-parks with underground rivers can fill whole days.

Puerto Vallarta works well too, especially from the family resorts of Nuevo Vallarta, and whale trips, turtle releases and Malecón evenings add variety. Steep cobbled streets are awkward with pushchairs, though, and the summer heat is harder going.

Puerto Vallarta is the easier place to get about. The old centre and the Zona Romántica are compact enough to walk, linked by the Malecón and footbridges over the Cuale river, though pavements are uneven and the back streets steep. Buses are cheap but hard to read, so taxis and ride-hailing cover longer hops.

Cancun is one long boulevard where frequent buses are the simplest option and walking is pleasant only near your hotel. For further afield its ADO coaches and straight peninsula roads make independent trips to the ruins straightforward.

Shopping is limited in both, and they differ mainly in what you come home with. Cancun leans on air-conditioned malls with international fashion, luxury labels and duty-free, plus the haggling stalls of Mercado 28, where much of the stock repeats.

Puerto Vallarta has no luxury depth but more character: Huichol yarn paintings and beadwork from the Sierra Madre, plenty of art galleries in the old centre, and silver and textiles at the market by the Cuale river.

Puerto Vallarta is the cheaper stay. Both have a wide gap between tourist and local prices, but in Vallarta the inexpensive side, taco stands, family restaurants and simple guesthouses in the old centre, sits right beside the beach districts.

In Cancun the Hotel Zone is priced for international visitors, and saving money means heading downtown for food and lodging. An all-inclusive package keeps costs predictable rather than low.

Neither has formal arts worth planning around, but Puerto Vallarta offers more to stumble upon. The Zona Romántica runs a long-standing cabaret scene of drag, comedy and revues in winter, bars host live Latin jazz and acoustic sets, and the Papantla flyers perform on the Malecón.

Cancun's performance is mostly staged for visitors, with folkloric dinner shows, resort entertainment and the large evening spectacles at the eco-parks down the coast.

The two are broadly level, and both offer the Maya or pre-Hispanic temazcal sweat lodge. Cancun's strength is the scale of its resort spas, with hydrotherapy circuits and ocean-view treatment rooms, though the boulevard traffic and Party Center noise mean quiet seekers head to the southern end, Isla Mujeres or Puerto Morelos.

Puerto Vallarta relaxes you more through its pace than its facilities: long mornings and sunsets over the bay, with yoga and retreat centres in the roadless villages of the south shore.