Hi all - so glad to have found these forums. My husband and I are at a loss. We want to buy at least 10 acres of land for a minifarm sometime within the next 5 years. We'd like it to be as cheap as possible (while still being arable), and somewhere south of NY (we aren't into the cold). Our problem? We're total hippies - right now we're living in central PA in a really conservative area and are, socially speaking, miserable. Very few like-minded people around here, and the cost of farmland is astronomical (mainly due to it being amish tourist land)!! My husband is an electrician, and I'm a homemaker with a master's in counseling.

Not trying to bash more conservative folk by any means, but we'd really love to start looking for somewhere more progressive/liberal/"hip" that also happens to be rural and affordable. We used to live near Madison, Wisconsin - which was perfect for us aside from the fact that it is FREEZING FREAKING COLD!!! :) Every forum I've posted suggests the west coast, but buying land on an electrician's salary on the west coast seems like a sick joke! And everywhere that is cheap I've seen is also in a really conservative area.

Any suggestions? We wouldn't mind being within an hour drive of a progressive community.

Thank you in advance!