La Fortuna or Santa Teresa, Costa Rica?

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

Santa Teresa is the reverse: a long strand of pale sand running from Playa Carmen down to the rockier shore at Mal País, with palms and forest close to the water. The catch is the surf. Rip currents make open swimming risky on many days, so cautious swimmers head for the rock pools at Mal País at low tide.

Santa Teresa eats more widely. Its international residents have brought wood-fired pizza, poke, Israeli plates and Argentine grills to open-air places along the main road, and sodas and fresh fish cover the local side. La Fortuna's choice is narrower: sodas serving casados and gallo pinto, plus steakhouses and pizza aimed at tour groups.

What La Fortuna offers that the coast doesn't is the farm. You can taste cacao and coffee grown on the volcanic soil just outside town. Neither place has a market.

Neither is a place for sightseeing, and the little there is differs in kind. La Fortuna has its white church on the central park, best known as a frame for Arenal, and the Maleku indigenous communities to the north make a worthwhile separate outing. Santa Teresa has nothing to visit, and its character comes from its surfing community rather than from any history on show.

Santa Teresa is the place for a night out, though on a small scale. Sunset drinks on the sand lead into a few venues taking turns through the week with DJ nights and beach or jungle parties, and on the right night these go late. La Fortuna winds down early, with a handful of bars, salsa or a band at the weekend, and a town that is quiet by late evening because most visitors are in the hot springs and then in bed.

Both are outdoor destinations, but La Fortuna's landscape is bigger and more varied. Arenal's cone rises above lava-flow trails and primary rainforest, the waterfall drops 70m into a gorge, and Lake Arenal stretches west. There is rafting on the Balsa and Toro rivers and canyoning down waterfalls, and Río Celeste and the Caño Negro wetlands are within reach.

Santa Teresa's outdoors is mostly the ocean: beginners' surf at Playa Carmen, stronger reef and point breaks nearby, and snorkelling trips to Isla Tortuga. Inland is dry forest with howler monkeys and coatis, plus the trail through Cabo Blanco reserve, but there are no mountains.

Both are poor bases for visiting other places, and in both the best excursions go into the landscape rather than to towns. La Fortuna has a little more variety, with the topiary garden at Zarcero and the Maleku villages near Guatuso, while the lake crossing to Monteverde works better as a transfer than a day out. From Santa Teresa, Montezuma is about forty minutes away and makes a pleasant afternoon, and anything further means a ferry and a long journey.

La Fortuna is the easier base with children. Hot-spring resorts have warm pools with slides, sloths and frogs are easy to spot from the hanging bridges, and gentle horse rides and chocolate-making fill the gaps. Its limits are age minimums on ziplines and rafting and the steep stairs down to the waterfall.

Santa Teresa suits older, sporty children best: rock pools at low tide and surf lessons in the white water. The open sea is unsafe for young swimmers on many days, the main road has no pavements and carries a lot of quads, and medical care is basic and some distance away.

La Fortuna at least has a centre you can walk: a few flat blocks around the central park hold the restaurants and tour offices. Everything you come for lies outside it, though, with the hot springs, volcano trails and hanging bridges spread out along the lake road. Tours usually include transport, and a hire car gives you the lake and Río Celeste, on roads that are slow in heavy rain.

Santa Teresa has no real centre, only one rough coastal road with no pavements and no public transport. Visitors rent quads, scooters or bicycles or take taxis, and walking along the beach is often the nicest way between spots. Just getting there is more work, with a car ferry to Paquera or a small plane to Tambor and then a transfer.

Shopping is an afterthought in both, and what differs is what you take home. La Fortuna sells souvenirs and gifts: carved bowls, hammocks, painted masks, Maleku crafts and bags of local coffee and chocolate. Santa Teresa's boutiques lean towards swimwear, linen clothes and surfboards, and have little local craft.

La Fortuna is the more manageable of the two on a budget, as long as you keep an eye on the excursions. Sodas and simple guesthouses in town are fairly priced, and most of the bill comes from rafting, ziplines and the hot-spring resorts. The free warm river and trails you walk on your own keep costs down.

In Santa Teresa the boutique hotels, villas and international cafés charge close to what you would pay in North America. The journey there, a rented quad and surf lessons or boat trips all add to that, so even a stay in a hostel with meals at the sodas costs more than it would inland.

In La Fortuna, live performance means a weekend band in a bar or folkloric dance staged with dinner, and most evenings belong to the hot springs. Santa Teresa's version is looser and happens outdoors: acoustic sets at beach bars, drumming and fire dancing at sunset, and DJs at the weekly parties. Neither town has a theatre or concert hall, so anyone who wants a proper performance should plan it for another part of the trip.

In La Fortuna, wellness comes from the volcano. Arenal's heat feeds thermal springs that resorts have shaped into terraced pools and cascades among rainforest gardens, and there is a free warm river stretch by the road, with spa treatments and open-air yoga alongside.

Santa Teresa has no hot springs, and its strength is yoga: shalas in the forest above the beach, week-long retreats, breathwork and massage. It works well for a structured retreat, but for long, quiet soaks La Fortuna is the stronger pick.