It really comes down to your price range. This area of CT has a wide range of housing costs, and you will get what you pay for.

Mystic has a lot of nice restaurants and some sort of a night life but it’s incredibly expensive and gets mobbed by tourists in the summer.

Waterford is pretty non-descript, has some nice areas and some eh areas but it’s all just various levels of suburbia.

Groton is basically Waterford but not as nice, albeit more affordable and with more strip clubs / strip malls. If you go to the Noank part of Groton it’s nicer, more quintessential coastal New England, but stupidly expensive but without the restaurants/nightlife that mystic has.

East Lyme is basically Waterford but a little nicer.

Stonington is nice, lots of large properties there so lots of privacy. Stonington by the water (stonington borough) is quite nice but basically it’s mystic with fewer restaurants. Pawcatuck, which is part of stonington, is more affordable and is pretty close to westerly RI right across the border which is a super cute little town.

If you’re willing to go inland there’s more affordable towns but they start getting a bit more rural.

New London has a lot more going for it than most people around here are willing to admit. It has a decent stretch of bars on bank street and some pretty good restaurants. It has some less nice sections of it certainly but people talk about it like you’re going to get shot or robbed or something when in reality its just where most of the black people in the tri-town area live (gasp) so people talk a lot of shit about it.