Hong Kong or Yangshuo?

Hong Kong has real beaches with warm water. Repulse Bay and Deep Water Bay are a bus ride from Central, Shek O sits on the rocky southeast coast and Cheung Sha on Lantau has long sand, and most beaches have lifeguards and shark nets in season. They make a good afternoon, though not a beach vacation.

Yangshuo is inland and has no beaches at all. A swim from the gravel banks of the Yulong after a day of cycling or rafting is pleasant, but anyone who wants sand and sea needs a separate stop on the coast.

Food is one of the main reasons to visit Hong Kong, and here the gap is wide. Cantonese cooking runs from morning dim sum and cha chaan teng milk tea to Temple Street night stalls, wet markets and some of Asia's most praised dining rooms, so almost any meal can be a highlight.

Yangshuo eats well but within a narrow range: beer fish, stuffed snails and bitter melon, and Guilin rice noodles for breakfast. The side streets and riverside villages do better than the tourist menus on West Street, and there is no fine dining to speak of.

Neither is a city of grand monuments, but Hong Kong has far more to see. The skyline from Victoria Peak, the old trams, Man Mo Temple, M+ and the Hong Kong Palace Museum in West Kowloon, and the Big Buddha on Lantau can fill several days.

Yangshuo has a few old brick villages, the Ming-era Dragon Bridge and an ancient banyan tree, and no museums of note. Heritage is a sideline there, and the landscape does the work.

Hong Kong has the wider choice of evenings. There is street drinking in Lan Kwai Fong, careful cocktail bars in Soho and Sheung Wan, Wan Chai bars that stay open into the early hours, and rooftops over the harbour, though drinks are expensive and there are few clubs.

Yangshuo's nightlife is a single strip. West Street fills with domestic tourists, loud music and dancers on stage until well past midnight. That is fun for a rowdy evening, and easy to escape by sleeping out in the quiet villages.

Both are outdoor destinations, but in Yangshuo the scenery is the reason to come. Limestone peaks rise out of rice fields at the edge of town, the Yulong and Li are made for bamboo rafts and riverside walks, and the climbing on hundreds of bolted routes is among the best in Asia.

Hong Kong stands out for how close wild country is to the towers. The Dragon's Back, sunrise on Lantau Peak, the MacLehose Trail and Sai Kung's volcanic columns and sea caves are all reachable by public transport. It is superb for a city, but the outdoors is one part of the trip among many.

From Hong Kong you can reach two quite different worlds: Macau's Portuguese squares, about an hour away by ferry, and Guangzhou, under an hour by high-speed train. Cheung Chau, Lamma and Tai O on the outlying islands are closer still. Mainland trips mean a border crossing, so check the entry rules first.

From Yangshuo the outings are to small old towns: Xingping and Fuli along the Li, Daxu's merchant street and Huangyao, a better-preserved Ming and Qing town. Guilin is about an hour away. They are pleasant trips but seldom the highlight of a stay.

Hong Kong is the easier choice with children. Disneyland and Ocean Park, the Peak Tram, the Star Ferry, the cable car and the science and space museums give plenty to do, and safe, efficient transport keeps outings simple. Small hotel rooms and weekend crowds are the drawbacks.

Yangshuo suits older children who like being outdoors. Rafting on the Yulong and the show caves with mud pools go down well, but nothing there is built for children, and cycling with little ones on roads shared with scooters and coaches needs care.

Few places anywhere are easier to move around than Hong Kong. The MTR, buses, trams and ferries all run on one card, the Star Ferry crosses the harbour in minutes, and even trailheads and beaches are easy to reach without a car.

Yangshuo's centre is walkable, but the sights are out in the countryside, so most visitors hire a bicycle, an electric scooter or a driver. Minibuses serve the main villages, the high-speed rail station is a drive out of town, and beyond the centre most signs are only in Chinese.

Hong Kong is worth visiting for the shopping alone. It has luxury flagships on Canton Road, huge malls in Causeway Bay and Admiralty and no sales tax, and the street markets of Mong Kok and Sham Shui Po double as sightseeing. Tailors, the antique shops of Hollywood Road and the designers at PMQ add more.

Yangshuo has souvenirs and little else, mostly mass-produced scarves, tea and carvings along West Street. The exception is the hand-painted fans from the Fuli workshops, the one craft worth taking home.

Hong Kong is by far the more expensive stay, and the room is the main reason: hotels charge a great deal for very little space. An evening of cocktails or a harbour-view dinner in Central adds up as fast as it would in London or New York. Living like a local brings the bill down sharply, though. A neighbourhood dim sum lunch, a cha chaan teng meal and the Star Ferry across the harbour all cost little.

Yangshuo makes money go much further, and what changes the bill is the calendar more than your habits. For most of the year a village guesthouse costs little and cycling the lanes is close to free, so the real spending goes on the Li River cruises, rafts, caves and the night show. Around Chinese New Year and the October Golden Week, when the whole country is on the move, rooms become far dearer and harder to find. Golden Week falls in the clearest walking weather, so plan to arrive once it is over.

Hong Kong has a proper stage scene. The Hong Kong Philharmonic plays at the Cultural Centre, West Kowloon has large modern venues, there is the annual Hong Kong Arts Festival, and Cantonese opera is staged at the Xiqu Centre and in village bamboo theatres, though most local theatre is in Cantonese.

Yangshuo's one big performance is Zhang Yimou's outdoor show on the Li River, with hundreds of performers lit against the floodlit peaks. It is worth an evening as a spectacle, but beyond it there are only dance shows for tour groups and cover bands.

Neither is a spa destination, and both have the same everyday foot and body massage. The difference is where the rest comes from. In Hong Kong calm is something you go looking for, in the gardens of Chi Lin Nunnery, at Ngong Ping or on car-free Lamma, with polished hotel spas and reflexology parlours back in town.

In Yangshuo, rest depends on where you sleep. A guesthouse in the Yulong valley, with tai chi in the morning, a river swim and evenings facing the karst peaks, is deeply restful, while the town centre stays loud late into the night.