If you are looking to become more self sufficient its nearly impossible if you do not have land to produce your food. In addition, you need a place to live. This does not have to be the Taj Mahal; the important thing is that you do not have to pay a bank a mortgage or a landlord a rent payment.
When Jen and I started started looking we really had no idea how to get started. So we just started. I searched online for land for sale. Initially we started looking on www.landwatch.com. We did not purchase through them, but this was how we started learning. We explored what we wanted via their search engine. Here is my warning -- you will probably get discouraged because land that is cheap, is cheap for a reason. Be careful you are looking at land that has access (unless you have a helicopter), water rights, etc. Additionally when you are looking I would suggest you look into the county government where you may be buying. It would be very difficult to build a cob, or cord wood home if your county government is highly bureaucratic. We looked for areas that would have been perfect and then found local ordinances would not allow us to have livestock, so we moved on.
Another thing I would suggest is that when you find a property you are interested in, ask many questions up front. For example, we spoke with a seller through Craigslist. They were advertising 10 acres for 13,000. It had a well, a house that needed demolishing, and many fruit trees. It ended up that the seller, was not the deed holder. In addition, we found out that the deed holder was not quite honest with the seller. We discovered once we got a plot map that the land was actually about four acres. We walked away immediately.
On another occasion we drove to Missouri to look at 12 acres being sold for less than 12,000. I was excited. We met with the owner and walked the land. The reason the land was priced cheap is that it was 12 acres of gully. I am sure we could have built a home on it, but it would have been way more than we could have afforded in the future. This trip also taught me a valuable lesson. At the same time we were looking at this property, the seller of our future home site was selling his. The price was about three times the price per acre of the 12 acre property. So we did not take the time to look at the smaller plot. About two weeks later we drove back to Missouri and looked at the property we purchased. The lesson do not let emotion cloud your judgement. If you are close see all options that you can because the more you see, the more you learn. In addition you don't want to spend more on gas, lodging, etc when every penny counts to purchase and improve your future homestead.
In closing I cannot stress enough how important it is to get boots on the ground when you are buying. We put over 3000 miles on a rental car in a week looking at properties in Maine. The trip was great, although we did not buy there. It was quality time with family, we got to see a portion of the country we always wondered about, and more importantly we came to realize that all the land that was being sold would have required two to four times the amount of the purchase to grade and make buildable. We also learned that compost in Maine is not the compost you think of in the Midwest. Its made from shellfish shells, so just imagine the smell.
Once we made the decision to purchase our property we hired a company to do a title search, and arrange handling the closing of the transaction. It is amazing how much easier it is to purchase property when you do not have a mortgage attached to it. The whole process was done in about two weeks.
In the end if you are looking to start your homestead make sure to take your time. Ask lots of questions and call the county your potential homestead is in and inquire about the owners, taxes, etc. You are checking to make sure what is being sold matches the deed. If it doesn't its a good indicator to walk away. If all measures up then go to the property. This will give you a good idea of who lives around you, resources that are available, and whether the land is usable.
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