"I’m not sure I could handle the emptiness of either place...”
I’m not sure I could handle the crowdedness (if that’s a word) of the other two places.
To each his own.
Most of Oregon is desert land and high range ,especially in the south east ,where these two counties are located.
It does make for good range land but with the exception of some minor mining operations there is no THERE there.And also most of it is Federal Land,not privately held.
Malheur and Harney counties are large empty counties. I have driven through each of them numerous times. Takes a long time to drive across them. For that matter, Lake County is 8300+ square miles, another large area of mostly nothing. I am not sure what qualifies Harney County as mostly forest though. It’s mostly desert. Oh well.