Small farm locations

I've been reading with great interest some of the old threads on sustainable living and voluntary simplicity. I am a city girl by birth and by circumstance, but I have always been very drawn to the idea of living closer to nature, farming, etc.

Major changes would have to take place in our lives to make that happen, none of which are going to happen tomorrow. For now, I'm working my little urban community garden plot and taking care of the herbs and tomatoes on my back deck. The next thing is to get extricated from my horrible job that I hate and that takes me away from my family so much of the time.

I'm not sure what the next step after that would be, although I was thinking of trying to get a job working on an organic farm next summer in exchange for veggeis.

Anyway, in the mean time, until I can make some of those changes, I would like to engage in a more detailed fantasy about having a small farm. So I need to have a location for my fantasy farm.

I'm curious what people think is a great part of the country to farm in. I have thought of upstate New York (my family has a bit of land), the Ozark mountains (because I imagine land would be cheap and that's where Laura Ingalls eventually settled), Northern California or the Pacific northwest (seems like there'd be a lot of hippies, even in rural areas, and a long growing season), or Western North Carolina (I have some friends there and I've heard it's really beautiful.

I'd like to hear where you farmers/homesteaders are, how you got there, what you like and don't like, etc. Thanks. Jessi