Where to stay in Puerto Rico: the best areas and hotels

San Juan is two holidays for the price of one. Old San Juan, on its own little island at the mouth of the bay, is all blue-grey cobbles, candy-coloured townhouses and the mighty walls of El Morro fortress, where kite-flyers gather on the lawns above the Atlantic. A short ride east, Condado is the city's beach district: a run of high-rise hotels, boutiques and restaurants facing the surf.

The best-known hotels are in and around Condado. Expect grand seafront resorts with several pools, full spas and casinos downstairs, including an Art Deco classic on the beach. One resort occupies its own 17-acre peninsula with a private beach and tropical gardens, and has a bar that claims to have invented the piña colada. Order one and judge for yourself.

Stay here if you want to walk to dinner, mix beach days with sightseeing and go out at night. If total quiet is the goal, look west.

Officially Isla Verde belongs to the neighbouring town of Carolina, but everyone treats it as San Juan's beach annexe. The draw is the sand: a wide, golden crescent lined with palms, calmer and broader than Condado's, with hotels opening directly onto it. The international airport is practically next door, which makes this the easiest first night on the island.

It is livelier than it looks from a sunbed. The strip behind the beach is full of restaurants, bars and late-night spots, and the grand old resort hotel here has been the island's place to dress up for decades. Couples are well served, with an adults-only hotel among the choices, and there are simpler beachfront hotels and guesthouses if you would rather spend the money on dinner.

Ponce, on the south coast, likes to think of itself as the island's other capital, and it has the architecture to argue the case. The centre is a grid of pastel mansions and shaded plazas, with the Parque de Bombas, a Victorian firehouse in red and black stripes, as its mascot. The sea here is the Caribbean, warmer and calmer than San Juan's Atlantic.

Hotels are fewer and better value. The main resort sits on the southern shore with a golf course and one of the island's larger casinos, about ten minutes from Ponce's own small airport and roughly 90 minutes by road from San Juan. Others are in the hills above town with sea views, or right in the historic centre. Come for a couple of nights on a road trip rather than a fortnight on the beach.

Cabo Rojo is where Puerto Ricans go on holiday. The island's south-western corner is a patchwork of fishing villages, mangroves and a national wildlife refuge, ending at a lighthouse on rust-red cliffs above Playa Sucia. Boquerón is the lively village, with a big sheltered beach; El Combate has one of the longest stretches of sand on the island and sunsets to match.

Do not expect big-name resorts. Places to stay are small and friendly: a handful of rooms a few steps from Combate Beach, guesthouses with pools up in the hills, and a family resort with a water park a minute's drive from Boquerón's beach. You will need a car, and you will be glad of it.