Sayulita or Tulum?

Sayulita's beach sits right in front of the village, a curved Pacific bay with rolling waves that make it a place to learn to surf rather than float. The town stretch gets crowded and the river mouth can carry runoff after rain, so calmer swimming means walking to Playa de los Muertos or along the jungle path to Carricitos.

Tulum has the better beach. Its long run of pale Caribbean sand stretches from the cliff-top ruins towards Sian Ka'an, with turquoise water and quieter, wilder stretches to the south, and Akumal's sheltered turtle bay is close by. Its drawbacks are sargassum in some warmer seasons and a bike or taxi ride from town to the sand.

In Sayulita the best eating is the simplest: fish tacos, aguachile made with the day's catch and al pastor from the stands around the plaza in the evening. Above that is a layer of smoothie bowls and pizza for the surf crowd, and people go to Puerto Vallarta when they want a serious dinner.

Tulum gives you a little more to explore, mainly because it has a regional cuisine to draw on. Yucatecan dishes such as sopa de lima, cochinita pibil and fish grilled with achiote turn up in the town's fondas, while the candlelit, open-fire restaurants on the beach road sell the setting as much as the plate.

Sayulita offers almost nothing to tour. A small plaza, a modest church and the hillside cemetery fill an hour, and the most interesting thing to see is the beaded and yarn work of the Wixárika people in the galleries.

Tulum has one site of real weight: the walled Maya port on the cliff edge, with El Castillo standing above the sea. It takes a couple of hours, and the modern town adds little to it, but it also makes Tulum a base for the larger Maya cities inland.

Evenings in Sayulita begin with sunset drinks on the sand and then move to a few blocks of mezcal and cocktail bars around the plaza, with the odd DJ keeping a young surf crowd out past midnight in winter. In the wet summer it goes quiet early.

Tulum goes out on a different scale. It is known internationally for electronic music, with DJ sets in jungle clearings, beach clubs that run into the night and full-moon parties at the peak of winter. Those big nights are expensive, so go with friends and keep an eye on your drink and your ride home.

Both places reward time outdoors, but the settings could hardly be more different. Sayulita has jungle-covered hills dropping to the Pacific, with surf breaks at Punta de Mita, headland paths, mountain biking, humpback whales from December to March and boat trips to the protected Marietas Islands.

Tulum is flat limestone jungle, and its best features are underground and offshore. Gran Cenote, Dos Ojos and many smaller pools offer some of the world's finest cavern snorkelling and cave diving, while Sian Ka'an's lagoons and mangroves can be explored by boat or on a float down Maya-built channels. There are no hills to walk, though.

From Sayulita the main outing is Puerto Vallarta, about an hour south, for its malecón and cobbled old town. Otherwise the choice is a string of coastal villages such as San Pancho, Bucerías and Chacala, plus the colonial ruins and mangroves of San Blas on a long day.

Tulum is far better placed for day trips. Coba's forest pyramid is under an hour inland, and Chichen Itza, one of the great sites of the Americas, pairs with Valladolid or Ek Balam for a full day. Add Cozumel by ferry from Playa del Carmen and the lagoon at Bacalar, though most of these need a car, a tour or the train.

Sayulita works best for older children who like the water. Surf schools take beginners on soft waves and Playa de los Muertos is a sheltered cove for swimming, but there is nothing built for children, and the cobbles and golf-cart traffic make pushchairs hard work.

Tulum has more to fill a family week. There are turtles in the shallows at Akumal, cenotes with wooden steps into calm pools, and the big eco-parks at Xel-Ha and Xcaret with lazy rivers and snorkelling lagoons. The catch is a beach strip aimed at couples and late parties, so a rental with a pool and a hire car is the usual answer.

Sayulita is the easier place to be without wheels. You can cross the village on foot in ten minutes, and the beach, bars and taco stands are all within that walk, though the lanes are cobbled or dirt, have few pavements and fill with golf carts. Slow coastal buses reach Puerto Vallarta and its airport.

Tulum is spread out along a highway, with the town, the beach and the long hotel strip kilometres apart. Bicycles cover the flat ground by day, but the roads are unlit at night, taxis are expensive and colectivos only run along the highway, so seeing cenotes and ruins usually means hiring a car.

Shopping is small-scale in both towns, and both have boutiques of loose linen and handmade jewellery. Sayulita adds surf shops for boards and wetsuits, and its best local buy is Huichol beadwork and yarn painting.

Tulum's boutiques along the beach road lean towards macramé, palm-fibre baskets and natural-dyed homewares at high prices. The main avenue in town is the better hunting ground for embroidered huipiles, hammocks and silver.

Neither is a bargain by Mexican standards, but Sayulita is the cheaper of the two. Its villas and visitor restaurants are priced for North Americans and surf lessons add up, but you can walk everywhere, the taco stands and fondas are inexpensive, and a summer visit brings room prices down.

Tulum is one of the most expensive places to stay in the country. Beach-road hotels charge resort rates, while taxis, beach clubs and party tickets cost more than elsewhere, and every cenote charges its own entry. Staying in a town guesthouse and cycling to the sea is how people keep it affordable.

Neither town has a stage of any kind, so live performance means music in bars. In Sayulita that means acoustic sets and bands on winter evenings, buskers near the plaza and the odd mariachi, with Puerto Vallarta the place for a real concert. Tulum offers bands on the main avenue, saxophone and drums over DJ sets, and ceremonial dance staged at the eco-parks.

Sayulita has a real yoga culture, with hillside shalas, week-long retreats in villas, massage and temazcal, and the surf, yoga and sunset rhythm suits a slow week. The centre gets noisy in high season, so for real quiet stay up on the hillsides or out towards San Pancho.

In Tulum wellness is close to the whole point of the place. The jungle and beach road are lined with retreat hotels, open-air spas, breathwork and sound baths, and the Maya temazcal is widely offered. The southern beach strip has a barefoot, hammock pace, though party nights mean choosing your spot with care.