Nuevo Vallarta or San Miguel de Allende?

Nuevo Vallarta is built around its beach: kilometres of soft sand on Banderas Bay, a gentle slope and a sea that stays warm all year. For variety, the coves of Punta Mita and the surf at Sayulita are within an hour.

San Miguel de Allende has no beach at all. The closest it comes is a soak in the spring-fed pools outside town, so anyone combining the two should treat the coast as the swimming part of the trip.

San Miguel de Allende is the better place to eat day to day. Within a short walk of the Jardín you have rooftop terraces over the Parroquia, courtyard dining in colonial houses, cooking built on Bajío ingredients like nopal and mesquite, and market stalls and evening taco carts.

In Nuevo Vallarta most meals are eaten in the resort. The coastal dishes worth seeking out, such as pescado zarandeado, aguachile and ceviche in a coconut with a glass of raicilla, mostly mean a taxi to Bucerias or Puerto Vallarta. The coast has the seafood, but the highland town puts good cooking on your doorstep.

This is where the two differ most, and San Miguel de Allende is far ahead. The whole centre is the sight: cobbled hillside streets, the neo-Gothic Parroquia, the Oratorio de San Felipe Neri, the Casa de Allende and the art schools that shaped the town. That is enough for two unhurried days.

Nuevo Vallarta is a planned enclave of hotels and golf courses with nothing of the kind. For old streets and a historic church you go to Puerto Vallarta, half an hour away.

Neither is a clubbing destination, but San Miguel de Allende has a real evening life on its streets. Drinks start on a rooftop as the Parroquia lights up, then move to mezcal bars and cantinas, and the centre stays busy late on Fridays and Saturdays.

Nuevo Vallarta goes quiet by midnight, with lobby bars and poolside shows. A late night there, including Puerto Vallarta's well-known gay scene in the Zona Romantica, always starts with a taxi south.

Nuevo Vallarta has the richer outdoors, and nearly all of it is tied to the water. Humpback whales calve in the bay in winter, the Marietas Islands offer snorkelling among rock arches and seabirds, and turtles nest on the beaches. Behind the coast lie the Ameca mangroves and the jungle foothills of the Sierra Madre.

San Miguel's surroundings are dry highland scrub and cactus. The canyon trails of El Charco del Ingenio, horse riding and dawn balloon flights make good mornings out, but there are no forests or water sports to plan a trip around.

San Miguel de Allende is the better base for excursions, because it sits in the heart of colonial Mexico. Guanajuato and Querétaro are each about an hour away and the murals of Atotonilco are closer still. Dolores Hidalgo, the pyramid at Cañada de la Virgen and the monolith at Bernal add more history and variety.

Nuevo Vallarta's outings are pleasant but mostly of one kind. There is Puerto Vallarta's old town, then a string of beach towns from Bucerias to Sayulita and San Pancho. For a change of scene, try the boat-only village of Yelapa or the old mining village of San Sebastian del Oeste in the mountains.

With children, Nuevo Vallarta is the easy choice. Everything is laid on inside the resorts, the sea is usually calm, and the outings children remember, like turtle hatchlings at dusk, winter whale watching and the water parks, are short trips away. In summer the heat pushes play into the mornings and evenings.

San Miguel de Allende welcomes children warmly, especially on the Jardín in the evening and during the fiestas. But it has almost nothing built for them, and pushchairs struggle on the steep cobbles, so older children will enjoy it far more than toddlers.

San Miguel de Allende is compact: every sight is within a walk of the Jardín, although the steep stones and the 1,900m altitude make it hard work. Taxis cheaply cover the climbs. Getting there takes longer, with a shuttle from Querétaro or León.

Nuevo Vallarta is the opposite. The airport is about twenty minutes away, but the resort boulevard is too spread out to walk. Days are organised around taxis, shuttles and tours, and a hire car helps for the northern coast.

San Miguel de Allende is a real shopping town for crafts and interiors. There is the stepped lane of the Mercado de Artesanías with its tin lanterns and blown glass, design shops selling talavera, rugs and carved furniture, and the artists' studios in a former textile mill.

Nuevo Vallarta itself offers swimwear and souvenirs in resort boutiques and a modest mall. The region's own craft, Huichol beadwork and yarn painting, is well worth buying, but for that you go to Bucerias or the river market in Puerto Vallarta.

Both are among Mexico's more expensive places to stay, so the difference is in how you spend the money. Nuevo Vallarta is resort and condo country, where all-inclusive packages fix costs in advance and saving money means leaving the enclave for buses, taxis and taco stands in Bucerias.

In San Miguel de Allende the money goes on boutique hotels in colonial houses and restaurants around the Jardín, which cost most at weekends and festivals. Market lunches, cantinas and churches and streets that cost nothing to enjoy are all a short walk away.

San Miguel de Allende has a genuine music life for a small town. The nineteenth-century Teatro Ángela Peralta stages concerts and dance, chamber music and jazz festivals come round in their seasons, and mariachi bands play on the Jardín every evening. Holy Week and the Alborada bring music and dance into the streets.

In Nuevo Vallarta the stage is the resort: poolside shows, folkloric dinners and one acrobatic dinner theatre. Puerto Vallarta's cabaret and drag stages are the nearest step up.

Both are made for slowing down, but San Miguel de Allende has the edge because its best places to relax are not tied to a hotel. The hot mineral springs towards Atotonilco, with open-air pools and domed grottoes, are a quarter of an hour away, and there are day spas, yoga classes and temazcal sweat lodges across town.

In Nuevo Vallarta, rest means the pool, the beach and your resort's spa, sometimes with a hydrotherapy circuit and a temazcal ceremony. How good the pampering is depends on where you stay.