Someone did an interesting study using GIS to correlate sighting locations with environmental conditions.
Sightings/encounters seem mainly to be in areas with higher annual rainfall.
I saw the map they made, and in my state (MD) there have been only a few. Many more further south (especially Central Florida), and of course in Northern California and the Pacific NW.
I am what you call a Bigfoot agnostic. I do collect stories from people who claim to have sighted them. I have visited the Bigfoot museum in Cherry Log Georgia. Spent a morning listening to strange sounds in the Georgia woods. Daughter worked with a Bigfoot hunter in Washington state who had a collection of plaster footprints