My advice; Houston has a lot of jobs, but it's a pain in the ass to get around. If you're an outdoors type of person, not a whole lot going for it there. Note; I'm a small town type of guy, I don't really enjoy city life and all the people. So if you're into that, do your research and don't listen to my jaded opinion. lol "Downtown" is pretty spread out - we have 3 different skylines. The couple of times I've been down there, it's not really a park and walk city. Seems we always have to drive to relocate for different activities (dinner, to game, to bar, etc.) I've heard The Heights area is better for this, but I've not been to that area.
If you like the outdoors, look around Austin and the "Hill Country". Only been to Austin once (on bicycle for the MS150), so I can't tell you much about it other than it is supposedly more liberal and artsy-fartsy with a decent music scene. But the natural layout of the land is much better than Houston (IMO) with many more outdoor activities close by - such as lakes, rivers (tubing/floating is big in the area), hiking/biking trails, even an offroad park just northwest of Austin. Oh yeah, and Wine Country. They have hundreds of wineries throughout Hill Country - the most popular "Wine Destination" is in the Fredericksburg area about an hour west of Austin.
Can you tell where I'd be looking if I had it to do over again?
On the other hand, Houston is closer to the beaches. Although if you want better beaches, it's still a 2-3 hour drive down to Corpus Christi on South. Galveston is neat to visit, but the beaches kinda suck, especially when compared to say, Florida beaches. Sand is dirty, not white, and the water is not clean. I wonder if it gets stirred up/muddy from the Mississippi dumping into the gulf over in LA?
