Salento or Santa Marta?

Salento has nothing to offer here. It lies deep in the coffee mountains, its rivers are cold and rocky, and a finca pool is the closest you will get to a swim.

Santa Marta is a genuine beach base, with warm water all year, the calm grey sand of El Rodadero and coves such as Bahía Concha within easy reach. The finest beaches are in Tayrona, with golden sand between boulders and palms. They take a walk to reach, and only sheltered spots such as La Piscina and Cabo San Juan are safe for swimming.

You eat well and cheaply in both places, and neither is a place to travel for food, but Santa Marta has more range. Its Caribbean cooking offers more to try: whole fried fish, coconut rice, seafood soups and arepas de huevo from the street fryers. The evening restaurants around Parque de los Novios also include a few more ambitious kitchens.

Salento's menu centres on river trout served on a big patacón and on hearty set lunches, and it soon repeats itself. Its strength is coffee. Drinking a cup on the finca where it was picked and roasted is more memorable than the Sierra Nevada coffee served in Santa Marta's cafés.

Santa Marta has more to see, though not a great deal. It is the oldest surviving Spanish city in Colombia, with a colonial grid around a whitewashed cathedral. It also has a gold museum on the Tairona people in the Casa de la Aduana and the hacienda where Bolívar died, which together fill a day.

Salento's appeal is a single street of painted bahareque houses with carved balconies, part of the UNESCO-listed coffee landscape, and the view from Alto de la Cruz. The town hangs together better than Santa Marta's uneven centre, but an hour or two covers it.

Santa Marta is clearly the better place for a night out. Bars and rooftop terraces fill the streets around Parque de los Novios and Carrera 3. El Rodadero has dance bars playing vallenato, reggaeton and champeta, and Taganga, over the hill, adds backpacker beach parties.

Salento has a few salsa bars on the plaza and a night of tejo, where you throw metal discs at gunpowder targets with a beer in hand. It is memorable once, but most people go to bed early for the next day's hike.

Both are first-rate for the outdoors, and the difference is one of altitude and setting. Salento is cool Andean country. The wax palms of the Cocora Valley grow up to 60m tall above a half-day loop through cloud forest, and multi-day treks climb into the páramo and glaciated volcanoes of Los Nevados.

Santa Marta combines mountains and sea. Tayrona's rainforest coast has jungle trails and monkeys, Minca offers cloud-forest birdwatching with many species found nowhere else, and the Lost City trek starts from the city. Taganga also adds snorkelling and diving, which Salento cannot offer.

Salento has the easier circuit of outings. Filandia, Buenavista, Circasia and Montenegro are short rides away, and Armenia's Quimbaya gold museum and the city of Pereira are about an hour off. The drawback is that the towns repeat the same painted balconies and coffee culture.

Santa Marta's excursions are fewer and further apart. Aracataca, the birthplace of García Márquez, is about an hour and a half away and Barranquilla about two hours. Taganga is just over the hill, but Cartagena is too far for a day.

Salento is the easier choice with children. The town is small, a ride in an open jeep and the horses are treats in themselves, and the Parque del Café and the Panaca farm park are about an hour away. Only the steep streets, the rain and the long, muddy Cocora loop slow things down.

Santa Marta works if the plan is beach days at El Rodadero's shallow bay or at Bahía Concha. Beyond that, the heat, the chaotic traffic and the few attractions for children make it harder going, and Tayrona's long walks and strong currents suit older children better.

Neither needs a car, but they work differently. Salento takes a few minutes to cross on foot, though some streets are steep. The Willys jeeps to Cocora leave when they are full, and most other coffee towns mean changing buses in Armenia or Pereira.

Santa Marta is a city that runs on taxis. The flat centre is walkable but hot and crowded, and buses, shared jeeps and mototaxis cover El Rodadero, Tayrona and Minca. In both places a hired driver saves time on a short stay.

Neither is a place for shopping, and in both it comes down to crafts and coffee. Salento's Calle Real sells ponchos, woven bags, carved wood and beans from the surrounding farms. Santa Marta's best buys are the work of the region's indigenous peoples: Arhuaco mochilas in natural wool and bright Wayuu bags and hammocks, along with Sierra Nevada coffee.

Both are cheap for visitors, with plenty of hostels, filling set lunches and low transport costs. The difference lies in the extras. In Salento the boutique finca hotels and guided treks into Los Nevados add up, while in Santa Marta it is the separate entry rate for foreign visitors to Tayrona, the Lost City trek and the busy seasons around Christmas, New Year and Easter.

Neither has a stage worth planning a trip around, but Santa Marta has more music to hear. Its historic theatre hosts occasional concerts, and on busy evenings vallenato bands, champeta and drumming groups in the squares bring the sound of the coast to the centre.

In Salento, music means a guitar in a café or a band in a bar at the weekend. The town's annual festivities are the one bigger occasion.

Salento is the more restful base. A stay on a coffee finca brings misty mornings, birdsong and coffee from the slope, and a few places offer yoga and massage. The hot springs above Santa Rosa de Cabal, about two hours away, make a day of soaking.

Santa Marta is hot, loud and full of traffic, and in town there are only hotel spas and massage on the beach. To rest there, you move out to the eco-lodges of Minca or the yoga retreats towards Palomino.