Da Lat or Nha Trang?

Here the two could hardly be further apart. Da Lat is a mountain town at 1,500m, and its nearest swimming, at Ninh Chu Bay or Nha Trang itself, is a winding drive of two and a half hours or more. That makes it a separate stop, not an afternoon out.

Nha Trang is built around its beach: about 6km of sand along the centre, warm water for most of the year and island bays for clearer swimming. The one caveat is the autumn monsoon, when the surf can close the town beach.

Nha Trang eats a little better and more widely, mainly thanks to the sea. It has grilled crab and clams picked from the tank, bun cha ca with fish cake and nem nuong pork rolls, plus a strong pavement coffee habit. Avoid the tourist strip, where menus drift towards pizza.

Da Lat's cooking comes from the farms around it instead: artichokes, avocados, strawberries and wild greens in hotpot, and grilled rice paper at the evening market. Both towns cook bánh căn in clay moulds. Da Lat's coffee is grown on the slopes you can see from the café terraces.

Da Lat has more to see, though neither is a heritage destination. Its French hill-station past survives in pine-shaded villas, the Art Deco station and Bao Dai's Summer Palace, and it adds stranger landmarks: the Crazy House and the porcelain-covered Linh Phuoc pagoda. That fills two or three days.

Nha Trang's highlight is older: the Po Nagar Cham towers, still used for worship. The hilltop Buddha and the Yersin museum add to them, but the rest of town is modern hotel blocks, and a single day covers it.

Nha Trang is the place for a night out. It has backpacker blocks with bar crawls, fire shows and DJ nights on the sand, a handful of clubs that go on into the early hours, and beer over seafood at long outdoor tables for a more local evening.

Da Lat's evenings are short and cold. You get the night market, a hot soy milk, perhaps one visit to the maze-like backpacker bar, and then bed.

Both have fine scenery, but Da Lat offers more to actually do in it. Pine hills, lakes and the 2,167m Langbiang peak lead into the Bidoup-Nui Ba forests, and operators run canyoning, abseiling and multi-day treks. The landscape is the main reason to go.

Nha Trang's nature is mainly water: a ring of green islands and the protected reef at Hon Mun, one of Vietnam's best-known places to dive and snorkel. On land it has the Ba Ho waterfall scramble and some forested hills, but little serious trekking.

Both towns are fairly isolated, and both use the same best outing: the Po Klong Garai Cham towers and the pottery villages around Phan Rang. Nha Trang is a little nearer to them, and it adds boat trips to island fishing villages such as Binh Ba and quiet bays along the coast.

From Da Lat, excursions mostly stay in the hills: K'Ho villages, coffee and silk farms. Seen from either town, the other works better as the next stop than as a day out.

Nha Trang is easier with children. It has a gentle beach in the dry months, a whole day of rides, water park and aquarium on Hon Tre island, turtle tanks and mud baths, and plenty of resort pools. Watch for the midday heat and the rough autumn sea.

Da Lat is a Vietnamese family favourite in its own way: strawberry picking, the mountain coaster at Datanla, the pine-top cable car and paddle boats. The cool air helps. But steep streets and spread-out sights mean frequent taxis, and teenagers may find the photo stops too kitsch.

Nha Trang is simpler, because almost everything sits on a flat seafront strip you can walk. Ride-hailing covers the rest, and boats take you to the islands. Arriving does mean a 35km drive from Cam Ranh airport.

Da Lat's centre around Xuan Huong Lake is walkable but hilly. Its waterfalls, pagodas and farms are scattered across steep roads that get slick in the rain, so most days involve a taxi, a hired driver or your own scooter.

Neither town is worth a shopping trip, and both are about markets. They differ in what you bring home. Da Lat sells jam, dried fruit, artichoke tea, coffee beans and embroidered silk, plus wool hats for the cold nights.

At Nha Trang, the round Cho Dam hall and the night market sell dried squid, cashews, pearls and agarwood, and there is a lot of beachwear.

Both are very cheap, with Da Lat slightly ahead. Pine-view guesthouses, night-market dinners and small entrance fees keep spending low, except at Lunar New Year and the national breaks, when rooms fill and prices jump.

Nha Trang's basics are just as easy on the wallet. Costs rise with the extras the town is known for: beachfront resorts, dive and boat trips, the island amusement park, and seafood priced by weight.

Neither town has a theatre or concert season. Da Lat has a little more character, though. Its small cafés hold evenings of acoustic Vietnamese ballads, many of them about the town itself.

In Nha Trang, live music mostly means cover bands in beach bars, with the occasional Cham dance show staged for visitors.

Da Lat's kind of rest is the weather itself. There are no baths or treatments to plan a day around. Instead you get cool, misty mornings by the lakes, unhurried coffee above the pine valleys and air that never turns sticky, which suits a few days of doing very little. Cheap massage is easy to find, but proper spas are rare, and a villa in the hills is calmer than a room in town.

Nha Trang gives a rest day more to fill it. You can soak in warm mineral mud and then the hot spring pools on the edge of town, which is a half-day ritual the highlands have nothing to match. After that come long, lazy hours under a beach umbrella and a walk along the promenade at sunset. The catch is heat and traffic noise in the centre, so the most restful stays are in the bays outside town.