Guilin or Yangshuo?

Neither place has a beach, and both rely on rivers to cool off. Yangshuo has the edge because the swimming is right there: gravel banks and weirs on the Yulong make an easy end to a cycling or rafting day.

From Guilin, the same swimming spots around Yangshuo are a trip away, so in practice a hotel pool is where most city stays get their swim.

Guilin eats better and more widely. Its mifen breakfast counters with braised meat and fermented chilli sauce are a daily ritual, and you can add river snails, Guangxi stuffed vegetables and night markets by the lakes. The range is still narrow by big-city standards, but there is more of it.

Yangshuo is where beer fish comes from, and its stuffed snails, tofu and bitter melon are worth ordering. The West Street restaurants lean towards tourist menus, though, so the better meals are in the side streets and riverside villages. The Western cafés are mostly there for climbers.

Guilin has much more to see. It has a walled Ming palace complex built around Solitary Beauty Peak, centuries of calligraphy at Longyin Cave, and hill parks such as Elephant Trunk Hill and Fubo Hill, plus the lit caverns of Reed Flute Cave. A day or two covers it, but it is genuine sightseeing.

Yangshuo offers a stretch of old paving on West Street, brick villages along the Yulong, the Ming-era Dragon Bridge and an ancient banyan tree. Heritage is not why people go there.

Yangshuo is where the late nights are. West Street fills after dark with open-fronted bars, stage dancers and loud music, and it stays rowdy past midnight with mostly domestic tourists. Quieter backpacker bars and riverside terraces sit just off it.

Guilin's evenings are gentler: a stroll around the lit lakes and the lanes off Zhengyang Street, skewers and a beer, and karaoke and a few clubs aimed at locals.

This is the shared reason to come, and both sit in the same karst landscape along the Li River. The difference is position. Guilin is the starting point for the four-hour river cruise and the closer base for the Longji rice terraces, about two hours north.

Yangshuo puts you inside the scenery. Moon Hill, Laozhai Hill above Xingping and the walk past the banknote view lie close by, and its limestone cliffs make it one of Asia's best-known climbing bases.

Guilin has the better spread of outings. Yangshuo itself makes a fine day out, Daxu's old trading street is half an hour away, and to the north lie the two-thousand-year-old Lingqu Canal and the Zhuang and Yao villages of Ping'an and Dazhai among the terraces.

From Yangshuo the list is mostly small old towns: Xingping, the fan workshops of Fuli and the better-preserved Huangyao, about two hours off. Guilin, an hour away, is pleasant rather than a must.

The two are much alike for children. In both, the Yulong bamboo raft and the show caves are the highlights, and neither has a zoo or theme park.

Guilin adds the river cruise and the coloured caves, though a family usually needs a driver to manage. Yangshuo is easier for active older children, with tandem bikes, mud pools in the caves and Chinese families everywhere. Watch for scooters on the lanes and noise on West Street at night.

Guilin is easier to get around. Its centre around the Two Rivers and Four Lakes is compact enough to walk to several hill parks, and cheap taxis, ride-hailing and the train to Yangshuo cover the rest.

Yangshuo's town is tiny, but nearly everything worth seeing is out in the fields. That means a hired bicycle or e-scooter, local minibuses or a driver, on roads shared with tour coaches. The high-speed rail station is a drive out of town.

Shopping is modest in both, but Guilin offers a little more. There are chain stores along Zhengyang Street, and the best things to take home are edible or handmade: chilli sauce, osmanthus tea, Sanhua rice liquor and minority embroidery.

Yangshuo is mostly mass-produced stalls on West Street. Its one real craft is the hand-painted fans of nearby Fuli.

Both are very cheap day to day, and in both the money goes on tickets. In Guilin that means cave and hill-park entries, which add up across a full itinerary.

In Yangshuo the cost is rafts, cruises and the night show, and room rates jump during Golden Week and the Spring Festival. A traveller who mostly cycles and eats locally spends very little in either.

The big performance is the same for both: the open-air Liu Sanjie spectacle on the Li River at Yangshuo, with hundreds of performers set against floodlit peaks. Guilin adds acrobatics, folk dance and the odd night of Gui opera, while Yangshuo's extra is cover bands on West Street. Neither has a theatre or a real music scene.

Neither place has a bathing culture, and both have cheap foot and body massage on almost every street. Guilin itself is noisy and full of tour groups, so resting there means leaving town. The Longsheng hot springs are about two hours away near the rice terraces, and the most restful choice is a guesthouse in the countryside outside Yangshuo.

Yangshuo puts that slow pace on your doorstep. In the Yulong valley you get terrace evenings, river swims, tai chi and qigong classes, and a warm mud pool in one of the caves. Just stay out of the town centre, which stays loud late into the night.