When we talk about "homestead" we don't mean land that we staked through a program and got for free. Sometimes that confuses people. To most of us, what we call a "homestead" is rural acreage that we live on and value for its natural beauty as well as its ability to produce some or much or even most of what we need to survive.
But the definition of a modern homestead can be anything from a city lot to a huge remote acreage. The main thing that defines a homestead is the people on it and their love of nature, independence, innovation, self-sufficiency, old crafts and skills, privacy, and dealing directly with the important realities of where food and water come from. Look at the topics on this forum...livestock, gardening, farming, family...loving such things- cultivating a personal relationship with the land we live on- is what makes a homesteader and a homestead.
A modern farmer would look at 40 acres of steep hillside covered with large trees and boulders and call it worthless. A real estate investor and a land developer look at the property and see massive bulldozer work, 40 subdivision lots, and maybe a big profit. An environmentalist would see habitat of the lesser speckled termite and put a world-class public boardwalk up the hill, with interpretive signs. A homesteader walks slowly over the same land, notes the direction of slope and the wind, and sees opportunity for a small house behind a knoll, a little pasture for goats, a terraced garden, maybe discovers a grove of apple trees gone wild and a bubbling spring, and lots of woods to explore and cherish...hopefully for generations to come.
The best way to understand homesteading is to subscribe to Countryside and/or Backwoods Home magazine, and look for Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living and any books by Gene Logsdon.
So to go about getting a homestead, probably the first thing you'll want to do is find land. Since you grew up in the country, think about what you liked about where you were, what you didn't like, etc.
Maybe you want livestock, crops, the whole nine yards. Maybe you just want to live somewhere without visible neighbors. If you get your goals clear first, it's a lot easier to look for what you really want.
Anyway, read up on the subject...hang out here on HT and read the threads...ask anything...maybe you'll decide you've found your tribe. Best of luck!