La Fortuna or Leon, Nicaragua?

La Fortuna has no beach at all. Swimming there means the cool plunge pool under the waterfall, a calm bend of river or a corner of Lake Arenal, and the Pacific is more than three hours away.

León does far better, with Poneloya and Las Peñitas about 20km west and warm sea all year. The sand is dark and volcanic, though, and the surf is heavy with strong rips. It suits surfers and people who like sitting by the sea more than anyone hoping for calm swimming, which you will only find at the sheltered end of Las Peñitas.

Neither is somewhere you go to eat, but León has more street life at the table. Its evening fritangas grill meat on the pavement, the Mercado Central serves plates of the day, and quesillo and weekend nacatamales give it some local character, along with rum from the cane fields.

La Fortuna offers honest casados at family-run sodas plus pizza and steak for the tour groups. Its one distinctive pleasure is the cacao and coffee farm visits on the edge of town, which León cannot match.

A culture-minded visitor will run out of things to do in La Fortuna in an afternoon. The town is a working base for the volcano, not a place with its past on show. Its one real link to heritage is a separate outing to the Maleku villages, where the culture is a living one: crafts and traditional houses rather than buildings and collections.

In León, the culture is the trip itself. Days fall into a steady rhythm of walking from church to church in the cooler morning, spending the hot afternoon in the shade of a small museum, and crossing from the colonial core to the indigenous quarter of Subtiava. The city's literary and revolutionary past is part of the streets themselves, so even a walk to dinner carries some history.

León is the one with a night out. Being a university town on the backpacker trail, it fills hostel bars, plastic-table rum joints and a few reggaeton and salsa clubs near the cathedral from Thursday to Saturday, though midweek is quiet and the scene is basic.

In La Fortuna, early starts for hikes and rafting set the rhythm. A couple of bars put on salsa at the weekend, but most evenings end in a hot spring and the town is asleep by late evening.

Both sit beneath volcanoes, but La Fortuna has the richer outdoors. Arenal's lava-flow trails, primary rainforest, hanging bridges with sloths and toucans, the 70m waterfall, rafting on the Balsa and Toro, and canyoning and kitesurfing on Lake Arenal make for a remarkably long list, and Río Celeste is within reach.

León's outdoors is drier and rougher. You can board down the black gravel of Cerro Negro, climb to Telica's glowing crater, take hard dawn ascents of San Cristóbal and Momotombo, or paddle through the mangroves of Juan Venado. It is thrilling, but there is less variety and less wildlife.

León has the stronger outings, led by the UNESCO ruins of León Viejo on the shore of Lake Managua, with a rum distillery at Chichigalpa and the pilgrimage basilica at El Viejo as lesser options.

From La Fortuna, the trips are into the landscape rather than to other towns. Zarcero's topiary church garden and the Maleku villages are the main options, and Monteverde is better treated as a transfer than a day out.

La Fortuna is far easier with children. Hot-spring resorts with slides, sloth and frog spotting from the hanging bridges, gentle horse rides and chocolate-making fill the days. The main drawbacks are the steep waterfall stairs, age limits on ziplining and rafting, and how often you need a car.

León is welcoming to children but has little made for them. The heat, the broken pavements and the rough surf wear young children down, so the hotel pool tends to win. Adventurous teenagers are the exception and will enjoy the volcano boarding.

In La Fortuna you walk to dinner and ride to everything else. The town takes only minutes to cross, but the springs, trails, bridges and waterfall are all out along rural roads. With few buses that are any use to visitors, every day out begins with a tour pickup, a taxi or your own hire car. A car also puts the lake and Río Celeste within reach on your own schedule.

León works the other way round. Sights, markets and places to eat sit close together in the old centre, so most days are spent on foot, with a tricycle or shared taxi when the heat gets too much. Only the coast and the volcanoes need transport, and buses and tour shuttles cover those, so a car would be more trouble than help.

Both are thin for shopping, and León is only slightly more interesting. Its Mercado Central and the big market by the bus terminal are worth wandering, and shops near the cathedral sell leatherwork, hammocks, rum and coffee.

La Fortuna offers a ring of souvenir shops round the central park with carved bowls, masks, Maleku crafts, local chocolate and rain gear. That is enough for gifts and little else.

León is the far cheaper trip. Hostels and colonial guesthouses, fritanga suppers, local rum and buses to the coast all cost very little, and even guided volcano climbs and boutique hotels in restored houses stay modest.

La Fortuna's sodas and simple guesthouses are reasonable, but the hot-spring resorts, rafting, canyoning and lodges with volcano views are priced for international visitors. To save money there, you have to stick to the free river springs and walk the trails on your own.

León has a modest stage and a much richer street calendar. The neoclassical Teatro Municipal hosts occasional concerts and folk dance, and the dancing Gigantona, the Holy Week sawdust carpets in Subtiava and the December Gritería bring the city out with drums, singing and fireworks.

La Fortuna has no theatre or music venue at all. Its performances stop at a weekend bar band or a folkloric dance put on with dinner.

La Fortuna is built for unwinding. Arenal's heat feeds a string of thermal resorts with terraced pools and warm cascades in the rainforest, and alongside them come spa treatments, open-air yoga and quiet lodges, plus a free stretch of warm river by the roadside.

León has no bathing tradition and only a few basic massage rooms, and its centre is hot and loud. The rest it offers comes from a courtyard hammock or a few lazy days in the beach villages to the west.