Los Cabos or Cancun?

Cancun has the stronger beaches. Its Hotel Zone gives about 22km of pale coral sand, with calm, shallow bay water on the northern arm and rolling Caribbean surf along the eastern shore, plus Playa Norte on Isla Mujeres a ferry ride away. The one recurring drawback is sargassum seaweed on the eastern side in some summers.

Los Cabos can be beautiful, but you have fewer places to swim. Medano Beach and the corridor coves such as Chileno Bay and Santa Maria Bay are the places to swim and snorkel, while the Pacific-facing sand, including much of the frontage of the big resorts, is too dangerous to enter. The water is also noticeably cooler in winter and spring.

Los Cabos eats a little better, and almost all of it comes from the sea: fish tacos, aguachile and the day's catch landed by the fishing fleet, best in San José del Cabo. The farm restaurants in the hills and easy access to Baja wine and mezcal give it more depth than the marina grills suggest.

Cancun's strength is its regional cooking. Yucatecan dishes such as cochinita pibil and sopa de lima are worth seeking out in the downtown markets and around Parque de las Palapas. Stay inside the Hotel Zone, though, and meals rarely rise above buffets and international menus.

Neither city is a destination for sights, and both send serious visitors elsewhere. The difference is in kind. Cancun offers archaeology, with the Maya Museum and the small San Miguelito ruins, plus El Rey and El Meco nearby. Los Cabos offers a small colonial-style town, with San José del Cabo's plaza, mission church and gallery district holding an evening art walk in season.

Both are party destinations of a similar intensity, and both lack variety. Cancun's scene is concentrated in the Party Center, where mega-clubs stage acrobatics, confetti and open-bar nights that last until dawn.

Los Cabos parties in looser fashion. The drinking starts at the beach bars on Medano in the afternoon and moves to loud bars and clubs behind the marina in Cabo San Lucas. San José del Cabo is the place to go for a quiet drink instead.

Los Cabos has the richer outdoors. Humpback and grey whales pass the cape in winter, often visible from the shore. The deep water off Land's End is famous for marlin, and Cabo Pulmo protects a living coral reef up the East Cape. On land, the Sierra de la Laguna offers proper hikes into oak and pine forest, and the Pacific breaks draw surfers.

Cancun's nature is almost all water, though it is good water: the Mesoamerican Reef, the underwater sculptures of MUSA, cenotes inland and whale sharks in summer. The flat scrubland behind it offers no hiking.

Cancun is much the better base for excursions. It puts Chichen Itza, Coba, Ek Balam and colonial Valladolid within a long day, as well as Tulum's clifftop ruins, Playa del Carmen and Isla Mujeres closer by. Few beach resorts sit within reach of so much ancient history.

From Los Cabos the choice is smaller and quieter. Todos Santos, with its adobe streets and galleries, is the usual outing. La Paz makes a longer day, and the old mining town of El Triunfo suits a loop by car. Beyond these lies mostly empty desert.

Cancun suits children far better. The northern bay beaches are shallow and calm, the resorts are built around kids' clubs, and the aquarium and eco-parks with underground rivers and lagoons give plenty to do away from the pool.

Los Cabos works mainly inside the all-inclusive resorts. Chileno and Santa Maria Bays are good for a first snorkel and whale-watching trips go down well. But there is no aquarium or theme park, and the Pacific surf needs constant watching.

Neither is easy to get around without help, but the difficulty differs in kind. Cancun is laid out along a single line: the Hotel Zone hangs off Boulevard Kukulcan, so the buses running up and down it and on into downtown cover most of what a beach visitor needs, and ADO coaches continue down the coast to Playa del Carmen, Tulum and Valladolid. The strip is a long, hot slog on foot, though, and cenotes and ruins away from the coach routes still need a tour or a hire car.

Los Cabos is spread out instead. Its two centres, San José del Cabo and the marina at Cabo San Lucas, are much nicer to wander than anything in the Hotel Zone. But the 30km of resorts between them, and an airport well to the north, leave most visitors relying on costly taxis, shuttles or a hire car, and the local buses do far less of the work than Cancun's do.

Neither place is worth a trip for its shopping, and both rely on duty-free malls. Cancun has the bigger craft market in Mercado 28, full of hammocks, huipiles and silver, but the stock repeats from stall to stall. San José del Cabo has the more original buys, with art galleries, design shops and folk art in its historic centre.

Cancun is the cheaper of the two, mainly because of the gap between the Hotel Zone and downtown. Taco stands, market halls, local buses and small inland hotels let a careful traveller spend far less than the beachfront prices suggest.

Los Cabos is expensive almost throughout. Corridor resorts are priced at luxury levels, marina restaurants charge American beach-resort rates and taxis add up fast. San José del Cabo helps a little, but it does not close the gap.

Cancun's evenings lean towards staged spectacle: large shows of Mexican music and dance at the eco-parks down the coast, folkloric dinner shows with mariachi, and nightly entertainment in the resorts. Los Cabos runs more to bar music, with cover bands and rock in Cabo San Lucas, mariachi over dinner and small events around the San José plaza. In both, there is no theatre, opera or concert season to plan a trip around.

Both offer resort spa vacations of a similar standard, and both offer the temazcal sweat lodge. In Cancun, the temazcal draws on a Maya tradition rooted in the region, but the Hotel Zone is noisy, so quiet seekers head to its southern tip, Isla Mujeres or Puerto Morelos.

In Los Cabos, the calm is easier to find on the spot. The corridor between the two towns is lined with sea-facing spas, beach yoga and quiet pools, and only Cabo San Lucas itself is loud.