Santa Monica or Tijuana?

Santa Monica is a real beach town and Tijuana is not. Santa Monica has a broad band of pale sand with lifeguard towers along its length, and Malibu's coves at Zuma, El Matador and Point Dume are close by. The Pacific is cool, so many people wade more than swim, but a day on the sand is the point of staying.

At Playas de Tijuana the promenade and the border fence running into the surf make a good walk, but runoff often makes swimming unwise. A proper beach day means driving half an hour to Rosarito, where the water is just as cold and the currents are strong.

Tijuana is the stronger place to eat, and the gap is widest in exactly what Santa Monica lacks: cheap, deep regional cooking. Santa Monica offers polished Californian dining built on its Wednesday farmers market, good seafood and brunch, but the taco trucks and Korean barbecue of Los Angeles are a long drive away.

In Tijuana that street food is the main event. Adobada carved off the spit, birria with its broth and sea urchin tostadas lead up to Baja Med restaurants in Zona Río and Chapultepec, with local craft beer and Valle de Guadalupe wine to drink.

Neither is a sightseeing destination, but their sights differ. Santa Monica's are its pier, the galleries of Bergamot Station and some Art Deco frontages, and its real cultural draw is the two Getty museums a short drive away, with European art at one and Roman antiquities at the other.

Tijuana offers history rather than collections. The Museo de las Californias explains the peninsula, Avenida Revolución keeps its Prohibition-era look, and the mural-covered border fence at Friendship Park makes the frontier strikingly real.

Tijuana stays up far later. Avenida Revolución has been where visitors from the north go to drink since Prohibition, and a block away Calle Sexta has cantinas, dive bars and small dance floors full of young locals, with cocktail bars and taprooms in Zona Río and Colonia Cacho. It pays to stick to these areas and take ride-hailing after dark.

Santa Monica is for a sunset drink on a hotel rooftop or a pint in a Main Street pub. The town goes quiet early, and clubbing means a long taxi ride to Hollywood.

Santa Monica is a far better base for the outdoors. Trails in Temescal Canyon and Topanga climb from the edge of town to ridges above the bay, the beach path runs about 35km for cycling, and surf lessons and whale-watching are easy to arrange.

Tijuana's own hills are dry and built over, with little green space. Its outdoor days lie south, on the cliff road to Ensenada, at the Rosarito surf breaks and in the vineyards of the Ruta del Vino, and each of them needs a drive.

Both make good bases, and the difference lies in where you can go from each. From Santa Monica the trips are Californian: Malibu, Santa Barbara's mission and wine hills, Laguna Beach, Catalina by ferry, and full days in Pasadena or Hollywood, all at the mercy of freeway traffic.

From Tijuana you can reach two countries. Puerto Nuevo's lobster, Ensenada's fish market and the wineries of the Valle de Guadalupe lie south, while San Diego and La Jolla are just north, but the queue to cross back into the United States can take hours.

Santa Monica is much the easier choice with children. The beach is good for digging, the pier has a Ferris wheel and a small aquarium, the playgrounds line the shore and the mild weather rarely gets in the way. Big theme parks are a long drive, and the visible homelessness downtown bothers some parents.

Tijuana has El Trompo's science exhibits, the IMAX dome and Parque Morelos, but little more. Patchy pavements, long distances and an adult-oriented main strip make it hard work as a family destination.

Getting around is easier in Santa Monica, at least locally. Downtown, the pier and Main Street are walkable, the blue buses cover the rest of town and the E Line light rail runs to downtown Los Angeles. Further afield, the Getty, Hollywood and the canyons are hard to reach without a car.

Tijuana has no rail at all. You can walk from the San Ysidro crossing to Revolución, but the rest of the hilly sprawl means ride-hailing or yellow taxis, and driving near the border means long queues.

Santa Monica has more shopping and more style. The Promenade has the big chains, Montana Avenue has boutiques and homeware shops, and Abbot Kinney in Venice has design-led stores, with Rodeo Drive a short drive away for luxury labels.

Tijuana's shopping is for bargaining and stocking the pantry: leather, silver and pottery in the curio markets, chillies and vanilla at Mercado Hidalgo, and small studios in Pasaje Rodríguez. There is very little fashion.

This is the widest gap between the two. Santa Monica is expensive even for California, with high hotel rates near the ocean, restaurant bills swollen by tax and tip, and parking on top. The beach, the trails and the light rail are its cheap pleasures.

In Tijuana money goes a long way at taco stands, in markets and in Zona Río hotels. Only the Revolución bars, the smarter Baja Med tables and the wine-country tasting rooms approach international prices.

Neither has a stage worth planning a trip around, though Santa Monica is slightly better off. The Broad Stage puts on chamber music, dance and theatre, small rooms keep a folk and acoustic tradition going, and in summer there are free concerts on the pier. Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl are within reach, but across town.

Tijuana's offer is more local in flavour. The Centro Cultural hosts the Baja California orchestra, and the city's opera company stages an open-air performance in a working-class neighbourhood each year. Otherwise the music is informal: norteño and banda in the cantinas, mariachis around Plaza Santa Cecilia, and rock and electronic gigs in the bars of Calle Sexta, where the Nortec sound began.

Santa Monica is the better place to unwind. Yoga on the sand, morning runs along the ocean, polished hotel spas and the evening sunset over the bay give a stay a slow rhythm, even without any bathing tradition.

Tijuana is loud and traffic-heavy, and its large health trade is dental and medical rather than restful. Calm there means fairly priced hotel massages or a quiet night on a vineyard estate in the wine valleys.