Texas Gulf Coast: Warm and wild

You've already walked the beach and picked up more shells than you know what to do with. You've built a sand castle, eaten buckets of fried shrimp and sipped a margarita on the deck overlooking the waves. What next?

There's plenty to fill your itinerary on the Texas coast, no matter which spot you choose.

Port Aransas

The Port Aransas Museum gives new life to a turn-of-the-century "kit house," the type that you could order out of a Sears catalog and assemble yourself. This one was home to several families and survived the 1919 hurricane before becoming a Coast Guard outpost and then a family home again. The home was abandoned and listed as one of the state's most endangered places by Preservation Texas in 2007 before locals rallied to save it, move it to its current location and turn it into a museum showcasing local history (1-361-749-3800).

Newport Dunes Golf Club, a new Arnold Palmer-designed course, is the Gulf Coast's only seaside golf course. The links-style course overlooking the sea harks back to golf's origins in Scotland and England with its minimalist style, rolling greens and fairways and stacked-wall bunkers, says general manager Kevin Michael (1-361-749-4653; www.newportdunesgolf.com).

The Wetlands Education Center features a 3 1/2-acre salt marsh, an extensive boardwalk system and an observation deck. A 45-minute tour is offered twice a week (1-361-749-6729; www.utmsi.utexas.edu).

Corpus Christi

Last year the world-class Texas State Aquarium unveiled Tortuga Cay, an endangered sea turtle sanctuary with above- and below-water viewing stations. The year before, it was the Wild Flight Theater, putting a talented crew of rehabilitated raptors onstage. This spring, the aquarium will finish Conservation Cove with the new Eagle Pass, a naturalistic outdoor habitat for the theater's birds of prey like Cowboy, the crested caracara and Gus, the white-tailed hawk (1-800-477-4853; www.texasstateaquarium.org).

Wildlife is getting spruced-up digs at the South Texas Botanical Garden and Nature Center, too. Set to open in late spring, a new butterfly house and Anderson Bromeliad Conservatory will add to the bird and butterfly trails. The 2,600-square-foot butterfly house will be aflutter year-round with native and migratory species of South Texas. The bromeliad house, a counterpart to the garden's Orchid House, will display the collection of world-renowned bromeliad specialist John Anderson, who hails from Corpus Christi (1-361-852-2100; www.stxbot.org).

Rockport-Fulton

This year there may be a bit of "Pardon our Dust" as Rockport revitalizes its historic downtown, but don't let that stop you from strolling down Austin Street or visiting the colony of artists showcased in the downtown galleries, Rockport Center of the Arts or Main Street Arts.

South Padre Island

At Sapphire Spa, a new waterfront spa, try a Sapphire Lava Shell Massage, which uses smooth, heated shells applied to strategic points, or the Lomi-Lomi Massage, based on a traditional Hawaiian relaxation technique. Treatments under the stars are available, with gentle jazz in the background (1-956-389-8888; www.spisapphire.com).

Set sail on a pirate-theme cruise with Black Dragon Cruises. A replica of a 17th-century Spanish Galleon departs on two-hour tours from Port Isabel, offering entertainment from a crew of professional pirates (1-956-943-6283; www.blackdragoncruises. com).

On the Wild Side

The best part of the coast, of course, is the nature, whether it's on the beach or in the outlying coastal wildlands.

Resaca de la Palma, Texas' newest state park in Brownsville, is part of the Texas Birding Center's 10-park chain of world-class birding habitats (1-956-350-2920; www. worldbirdingcenter.org/sites/brownsville).

Time your visit to Padre Island National Seashore to coincide with a release of baby sea turtle hatchlings into the wild. Between 10 and 20 releases will occur between late May and early August (www.nps.gov/pais).