Like most Texans, I live in a big, congested city that I frequently long to leave behind. The state’s wide-open spaces call to me constantly, and during the summer, as the temperature rises, what invariably beckons are the more than 350 miles of Texas coast, stretching from the final spit of sand at Boca Chica in the south to the waters of the Louisiana-bordering Sabine Lake in the north. Can there be anything more restorative than the shore’s wild splendor for as far as the eye can see?

Of course, splendor is probably not the first thing you think of. Because, let’s face it, Texas doesn’t rank among the supermodels of the world’s beachfronts. Its waters are not the bluest, its sands not the whitest. The flares from off-gassing petrochemical plants, the myriad cheek-by-jowl resorts, and the RV parks that cater to snowbirds in the winter months—not to mention disasters like the Deepwater Horizon spill three years ago—are a constant assault on the coast’s beauty.