Cartagena or Santo Domingo?

Neither city is good for swimming on its own shore, but Cartagena gets you to a fine beach more easily. Its city strands at Bocagrande are murky and crowded with vendors. The reward is the boat ride out to the Rosario Islands and Baru, where the water turns clear turquoise within the hour, and you can stay the night.

Santo Domingo's seafront is coral rock and surf, so a beach day means driving east. Boca Chica's reef-sheltered lagoon is calm and shallow but packed at weekends, and Juan Dolio is quieter with more open sea. Both are pleasant, but nothing as close as Cartagena's islands.

You eat about as well in either city, but the food is different. Cartagena cooks like a Caribbean port: fried whole fish with coconut rice, ceviche from street carts, arepas de huevo, and fruit and coconut sweets from the palenqueras. Its best tables are in restored houses inside the walls, but many old-town menus are aimed at tourists.

Santo Domingo's food is heartier and built on meat: la bandera at lunch, mangú for breakfast, mofongo and chicharrón at night, all cheap in the comedores. The more ambitious kitchens are out in Piantini and Naco rather than the old town, and the drinks are rum and cold beer from the colmado.

Both have a UNESCO colonial core you can see in two or three days, but the pleasures differ. Cartagena's is the more complete townscape to walk through, with painted balconied streets, ramparts you can walk along and the huge Castillo San Felipe. Its museums are modest, though.

Santo Domingo draws you with history rather than the look of its streets. Here are the first cathedral, the first paved street and the Alcázar de Colón. It also has more to see indoors, with the Museo de las Casas Reales and the Museo del Hombre Dominicano at the Plaza de la Cultura.

Nights out are about as good in both cities, and in both they mean dancing late. Cartagena's is compact: the plaza in Getsemaní, salsa bars, rooftop cocktails inside the walls, champeta, and the chivas and party boats that are its own speciality. The price is crowds of tourists and pushy touts.

Santo Domingo dances to merengue and bachata and feels more local. Its classic night out is the colmadón, a corner shop turned open-air bar with plastic chairs. The scene is split between the Colonial Zone and the clubs of Piantini, so you need taxis, and you should not walk far late at night.

Cartagena has more outdoors close at hand, and most of it is on or under the water. You can snorkel and dive on the Corales del Rosario reefs, paddle a canoe through the La Boquilla mangroves, or kitesurf in the dry-season winds, though the land around the city is flat farmland.

Santo Domingo has city green spaces rather than wild country. There are the cave lagoons of Los Tres Ojos, the Botanical Garden and Parque Mirador Sur. Los Haitises, the mountains around Jarabacoa and the whale waters of Samaná all need a long day or a night away.

Santo Domingo is the better base for day trips. The road east takes you to the hilltop village of Altos de Chavón, through the old sugar town of San Pedro de Macorís, and to Bayahibe for boats to Saona and Catalina. Santiago is just about possible for a long day.

Cartagena has less within a day. San Basilio de Palenque, with its own language and music, makes a rewarding half day. Mompox and Santa Marta both need an overnight stay, so outings here mostly mean boat days to the islands.

Cartagena's best family days are spent on the water, while Santo Domingo keeps more for children inside the city. In Cartagena that means calm, warm swimming off the islands, with a stop at the National Aviary on Baru, plus carriage rides and the ramparts in town. Long boat rides and the humid heat tire small children, so a hotel pool is worth having.

Santo Domingo has the National Aquarium, the zoo, the caves at Los Tres Ojos and forts with cannons, and Boca Chica's shallow lagoon suits small swimmers well. Against that, heavy traffic, broken pavements and constant taxi rides wear families down.

Cartagena is much easier to get around. The walled city, San Diego and Getsemaní are a few minutes' walk apart, you can walk across to the Castillo San Felipe, and cheap taxis cover the rest. The midday heat is the only real obstacle.

In Santo Domingo only the Colonial Zone is easy on foot. The rest of the city is spread out and choked with traffic, the metro serves commuters rather than sights, and the guaguas confuse newcomers. Most visitors end up using app taxis for every trip across town.

Cartagena is the place for Colombian design and woven craft, Santo Domingo for stones and goods found only on its island. In Cartagena the vaulted shops of Las Bóvedas sell Wayuu mochilas, sombreros vueltiaos and hammocks, jewellers near the Plaza de Bolívar deal in emeralds, and a handful of boutiques of Colombian designers sell linen resortwear.

Santo Domingo's buys are amber, blue larimar, hand-rolled cigars and aged rum, found along Calle El Conde and at the Mercado Modelo, where you have to bargain hard. Beyond those, residents head to the malls of Piantini and Naco, and there is little independent design to match Cartagena's boutiques.

Santo Domingo is a little kinder to the budget. Comedor lunches, colmado beer, street food and app taxis are cheap all over the city, and the museums and forts charge little to get in.

Cartagena can be good value too, with Getsemaní hostels, set lunches and cheap taxis. But it is Colombia's most expensive city, its restored-mansion hotels approach European prices, and costs peak when Colombians arrive at Christmas and Easter. Agree prices with hawkers and boatmen before you set off.

Santo Domingo offers more to hear and watch. The Teatro Nacional Eduardo Brito is home to the National Symphony Orchestra and also stages ballet and opera. The Sunday concert in the ruins of the San Francisco monastery, with couples of every age dancing to son and merengue, is a ritual worth planning a weekend around.

Cartagena has the ornate Teatro Adolfo Mejía and a classical festival in January, but little regular programme. The rest of the year its music is on the street: cumbia dancers and drummers in the plazas, and salsa and champeta in Getsemaní.

Cartagena is the easier place to unwind. Its colonial-house hotels have plunge pools and shaded courtyards in the middle of town, massages are cheap, and a few nights on the islands bring life down to hammocks and the tide. The Totumo mud bath is good fun but hardly a cure.

Santo Domingo offers little rest. Horns and music fill the streets, so relaxing means a spa in one of the big Malecón hotels, a guesthouse courtyard or the botanical garden. People who want real rest usually leave for a resort further along the coast.