I can only speak to Rockport. There are quite a few kickass homes in Key Allegro in Rockport that you can rent. The vast majority of them are on a canal with some having direct views of the bay and most of them are second homes. There are also newer neighborhoods along the bay between Rockport and Aransas Pass. Key Allegro is going to cost you ~$1M to get in if you buy on a canal and up that price the closer you are to the bay. It's expensive but it's also beautiful and very quiet during the week because there is no one here (second homes). Holidays are rowdy as hell (in a fun way if you like to party) and some weekends can be too in the summers.

Rockport is an interesting little place. It's pretty eclectic being a fisherman's paradise + the art mecca of the Coastal Bend. If you like those two things, then you will love this place. For a town of 10k, Rockport-Fulton seems to have more restaurants (and good ones) than a comparable sized town has (totally anecdotal on my part). And I think that's due to the eclectic community here.

We have an HEB and a Wal-Mart Super Center. That HEB prints money. We also have a kickass ACE Hardware. To give you a sense of the money here, our ACE Hardware carries ladies clothing and accessories you can typically only find in very high end locales like Highland Park in Dallas or River Oaks in Houston....at ACE! My wife is floored every time she goes in there. (I'm not saying this is necessarily a great thing; it's just a reflection of the money that has discovered Rockport). Downside of that is that some of our restaurants have gotten pricey.

Not too many pure bars in town but we do have a couple. Sugar Shack in Fulton and there is one in downtown Rockport. More than that but I don't frequent bars here so I'm a little uninformed on that.

We moved here from inside Dallas proper and haven't regretted it once. Best sunsets on the planet IMO. Almost every evening is a damn art canvas in the sky. The winter and fall here are spectacular because it's basically California weather for half the year. I was very worried about the summers but there is almost always a breeze, if not outright winds, and if you are close to the water it negates a lot of the heat. Dallas is intolerable in the summers. Here, I can sit outside in the evenings in summer and it's pretty comfortable outside of days where there is just zero wind.