Posted this back in June
http://habitat-talk.com/index.php?posts/106040/
It's about 900 plus miles to my place in MO.
MoBuckchaser pretty much hit all the top points for why I do it.
I own 114 acres in southern NJ. It's all timber, the area lacks food so I cleared about and acre two years ago. Never planted it, that's as far as it got. I just can't get excited about hunting here. There is the occasional toad in the neighborhood but 90% of the bucks killed are 1.5 year olds. I think I hunted alone once last year. The only other times I was there were to let my son take a stand for does or whatever he wanted to shoot.
About 10 years ago I went to Missouri to help a buddy put stands up and do some work at his place. I had personally given up deer hunting for duck hunting years before that. The N. MO countryside screamed deer territory to me. By that fall I owned my farm there and the insanity we call QDM began.
When I can sit on stand for a couple days and see more antlered deer than I would in a season in NJ I know it was the right choice for me.
The only draw back is I no longer have a yellow lab tagging along with me. Don't have the time it takes to train and keep a good retriever and play on the farm. One would suffer so when Otis passed no new dog for me.