Nashville to Houston?

My wife is originally from Texas, an hour outside of Houston. She lived in Los Angeles from 2011 until 2021, and we have lived together in Nashville since 2021.

Recently, she has been telling me daily that she wants to move to Houston. I am a very active guy (bike riding, bowling, outdoor markets, watching live music, trying new restaurants) and she is convinced that there is way more for me to do there both during the weekdays and weekends, and that we will make friends more in our age demographic (35-42) since Nashville is a younger city (20s-30s).

I have visited Houston many times, as I have gone to see her family twice a year over the past decade plus, and in my opinion, Houston seems like the complete opposite of Nashville. To me, it seems more like a city where people go to work, and then they go home on the weekends to their smaller towns 45 minutes + out. I’ve tried to go on the weekend a few times, and it mostly seemed like a ghost town, and I didn’t feel comfortable walking around at night alone like I do in Nashville.

We have pets so we would need to live in a house, so she has been sending me links to different neighborhoods that seem relatively close, but I know how horrendous the traffic can be.

Can anyone on here tell me if they’ve ever made the move from Nashville to Houston or from a similar smaller city to Houston and what their experience was like. Did you love it? Hate it? What would be the pros and cons?

Thanks!