Da Lat or Sapa?

Neither city is a place to swim, and both need a separate stretch on the coast for any sea time. The difference is distance. From Da Lat, Nha Trang or Ninh Chu Bay is a few hours down the mountain passes, so the coast fits easily into the same route. From Sapa, the nearest sea is a whole journey away, and cold streams are all there is nearby.

Da Lat is the better place to eat. The farms in its valleys supply avocados, artichokes and strawberries, the evening market by the central market steps is a meal in itself, and arabica grown on nearby slopes makes coffee on a terrace above the pines part of every day.

Sapa's best food is good after a long walk: salmon and sturgeon hotpot, grilled skewers by the lake, and Hmong dishes such as thang co for the adventurous. Outside that, the centre offers mostly mixed traveller menus, so the choice runs out sooner than in Da Lat.

Da Lat has more to see in the town itself: French villas among the pines, the pink Domaine de Marie church, the Art Deco station, Bao Dai's Summer Palace, and odder sights like the Crazy House and the mosaic-covered Linh Phuoc pagoda.

In Sapa, the town has little beyond its stone church and a small museum. The culture lies out in the valleys, with the Black Hmong, Red Dao, Tay and Giay villages, where indigo dyeing and weaving are part of everyday life. To see that, you have to walk past the busy, partly staged villages near town.

Both are early-night towns, but Da Lat has a little more going on after dark. The night market keeps the centre lively into the evening, and the backpacker bars include a famously maze-like one most visitors try once. Sapa's evenings come down to a hotpot, the lakeside grills and a handful of pool-table bars, and then bed before the next day's walk.

Sapa has the more dramatic landscape. The Muong Hoa valley's rice terraces drop away below the town, Fansipan rises to 3,143m, and you can set off on one- to three-day treks between homestays without needing transport. The views change a great deal with the seasons and the cloud.

Da Lat is gentler: pine hills, lakes, Langbiang mountain and the forests of Bidoup-Nui Ba. Its strength is organised adventure, such as canyoning at Datanla, abseiling and downhill biking through coffee farms, though greenhouse farming takes away from many of the valleys.

Sapa offers better outings. Bac Ha's Sunday market, where Flower Hmong come to trade buffalo and textiles, is a real draw, and smaller markets like Can Cau and Coc Ly give a quieter version of the same thing.

Da Lat's mountains cut it off more. The one strong outing is the long drive down to Phan Rang for the Po Klong Garai Cham towers and pottery villages. Otherwise, it is K'Ho villages and coffee or silk farms close to town.

Da Lat is far easier with children. Vietnamese families go there for the Valley of Love, strawberry picking, the mountain coaster and the cable car to Tuyen Lam Lake, and the mild weather means no one wilts in the heat. Steep streets and spread-out sights mean plenty of taxi rides.

Sapa suits older children who can manage a village walk and enjoy a homestay night or the Fansipan cable car. With toddlers, the slippery trails, cold rooms in winter and persistent vendors make it hard work.

Getting around is about equally awkward in both. Each has a hilly, walkable centre with uneven pavements and no public transport worth using. In Da Lat, metered taxis and ride-hailing apps are the easy way to reach sights spread over the hills.

In Sapa, much of the getting around is done on foot along trekking trails, with motorbike taxis or a car and driver for the passes. A short mountain tram runs to the Fansipan cable car. Reaching Sapa from Hanoi is also a long road journey or an overnight train.

There is little shopping in either town, but what there is differs. Da Lat's best buys are edible: dried fruit, strawberry jam, artichoke tea and local coffee beans, plus warm hats and second-hand jackets at the night market. Sapa sells textiles, such as Hmong and Dao embroidery, indigo batik and silver jewellery. Some of it is fine handwork, but you need to know how to spot machine-made copies.

Both are very cheap by international standards, and Da Lat is a little cheaper overall, with low-cost rooms overlooking the pines and night-market dinners. Its prices rise only around Tet and the long national breaks, when Vietnamese visitors fill the rooms.

In Sapa, the hotels and cafés in the centre cost slightly more than in the lowlands, and the Fansipan cable car is the one real splurge. Guided treks and village homestays still cost little.

Neither has a theatre or concert season, but Da Lat's evenings offer something better to listen to. Small cafés host acoustic sets of Vietnamese ballads, many of them written about the city, and the Flower Festival brings outdoor shows. In Sapa, it comes down to short Hmong and Dao pan-pipe and dance performances in the square at weekends.

Both are calm places to slow down, but in different ways. Da Lat offers cool, misty mornings over the lakes, long hours in cafés and a few villa resorts with proper spas. Sapa has an actual bathing tradition, the Red Dao herbal bath in wooden tubs, which is a real pleasure after a day's walking. In both towns, the quiet is found out among the trees or terraces rather than in the centre.