Manila or Puerto Princesa?

Neither city has a swimming beach in town, but the gap is in how far you have to go. Manila Bay along Roxas Boulevard is polluted, and the nearest proper sand in Batangas or Bataan is two to three hours away, really an overnight trip.

Puerto Princesa's own bay is muddy and fringed with mangroves too, but the white sandbars and shallow reefs of Honda Bay are about half an hour away, and Nagtabon's long pale beach about an hour. These are still day outings rather than beach life on the doorstep, and many travellers who want that move on north to El Nido.

Manila is the place to eat. Binondo, often called the oldest Chinatown in the world, can be grazed on foot, carinderias and street grills cover the everyday, and Makati, Poblacion and BGC add chefs reworking Filipino cooking alongside Japanese, Korean and Spanish kitchens.

Puerto Princesa eats honestly but narrowly: grilled seafood on the baywalk, kinilaw, chao long noodle soup left by the Vietnamese refugee community, and tamilok for the curious. It makes for good meals, not a reason to travel.

Manila has the history. Intramuros holds Fort Santiago and the UNESCO-listed San Agustin Church, and the neoclassical National Museum buildings next to Rizal Park hold Filipino art and anthropology, though the 1945 battle means the rest of the city is mostly modern.

Puerto Princesa offers a morning's worth: the blue Gothic-style cathedral, the wartime ruins of Plaza Cuartel, a small museum and the unusual open prison farm at Iwahig.

Manila goes out late and in several styles: small cocktail bars and rooftops in Poblacion, big clubs in BGC, older haunts in Malate and glitzy bayfront casinos, plus karaoke everywhere. The catch is choosing one district per night and getting a car home.

Puerto Princesa has a few weekend bars with cover bands on Rizal Avenue and a sunset stroll on the baywalk, and with tour pickups at dawn the town is asleep before midnight.

This is Puerto Princesa's reason to exist as a destination. The Underground River runs through limestone caves in a national park where jungle-covered karst drops to the sea, and around it come mangrove paddles, Honda Bay reefs, dolphin boats and firefly canoes on the Iwahig River.

Manila has little green in town beyond Rizal Park, though Taal volcano seen from Tagaytay, the Masungi limestone trails and the reefs at Anilao reward an early escape from the traffic.

Manila has the more varied list of places to go for a day: the wartime island fortress of Corregidor by ferry, Tagaytay above Taal Lake, the old Laguna towns and Rizal's shrine at Calamba, and Pampanga for Kapampangan cooking. Traffic limits how many you can manage.

From Puerto Princesa the outings are to rivers and reefs rather than other towns, and the interesting places, Port Barton and El Nido, are too far to return from in a day, so travellers move on to them instead.

Both are warm towards children and both are hard work with them, but in different ways. Manila's family days are mostly indoors, in malls with ice rinks, Manila Ocean Park and the free natural history museum, while its broken pavements and traffic make the streets tiring.

In Puerto Princesa children are outside, paddling into the cave, splashing off the sandbars and watching fireflies, and the price is long van rides, early starts and no car seats in tricycles.

Getting around is a chore in both, for opposite reasons. Manila is a sprawl of separate cities with jammed roads and patchy elevated rail lines, so most visitors use ride-hailing and stick to one area a day.

Puerto Princesa is small, with the airport almost in town and tricycles for short hops, but nothing beyond it is reachable without a tour van or hired driver, and the road to Sabang is long and winding.

Manila shops on a vast scale: the bayfront and Ortigas megamalls, the Ayala Center gardens and BGC's high streets, then Divisoria's wholesale lanes, Greenhills for pearls and gadgets, and handicrafts under Quiapo's bridge.

Puerto Princesa is about pasalubong gifts, cashews, dried fish, woven mats and pearls of mixed quality, plus a couple of ordinary malls.

Both are cheap day to day, and what differs is where the money goes. In Manila the bill rises only if you live in Makati or BGC, among restaurants and hotels priced for expatriates, while in Puerto Princesa the meals and tricycles cost little but the Underground River tours, island boats and environmental fees take up much of the budget.

Manila has a real stage. The Cultural Center of the Philippines is home to the national orchestra and Ballet Philippines, folk companies dance the tinikling, English-language theatre stages big musicals, and skilled Filipino bands play in bars most nights.

Puerto Princesa has cover bands in bars and the odd dance show put on for tour groups, and nothing to plan an evening around.

Both rely on massage, including traditional hilot, and both have resort and hotel spas, so the difference lies in the setting around them. Manila's spas are an escape from a loud, hot city, with the hot springs of Los Baños a couple of hours away, while Puerto Princesa's unhurried pace is calm already, and only the tour circuit's early starts make you need a slow day by the pool.