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When I took the State Farm certification exams (admittedly more than 14 years ago now), they were administered by Sylvan Learning Centers, which are located in most cities around the country. If this is still the case, you will not have to leave home to take them. You do not need to take the certification exams separately for each independent firm for which you want to work.
In addition, there was a required orientatiion that was braodcast to various centers around the country, and even in Canada. I travelled from Erie, PA, to the State Farm regional office in Toronto, and was the only person sitting in this large room participating in the interactive simulcast while the adjusters in Texas were standing room only.
My advice is this: Choose one of the companies for which you want to work. Call them and tell them you want to know how to get State Farm certified. Someone at that company will be able to tell you what the current proceedure is. In all likelihood you will not have to travel far, and may not have to stay overnight anywhere.  Watch out for the earthquake test.  It's the only test I've ever failed in my whole life.   I failed it the day before I got my first independent assignment working a series of tornadoes in Florida (working for State Farm through Crawford and Company). 

So what do I do now?  I work on staff with a small commercial insurance company whose property business is almost exclusively with DIC earthquake policies, of course.  I've learned a lot in the last 14 years.  Today I could probably write the test rather than failing it.

Pilot offers the State Farm Estimatics certification and they are having courses 9/26-28. They may cancel due to Isaac but I doubt it since Isaac has turned out to be not much of a claim producer. Go to www.pilotcatastrophe.com or call Pilot.

In case you have not found the information you are looking for. All the firms hold them at the same time since they are actually put on by State Farm and they are done by IDL (interactive distance learning) though satellite usually at the firm’s offices. They are branching out so they can get more people from different areas due to the reason you stated. Nobody wants to take the chance of going that far and spending that money to fail. Right now Pilot only has two locations they are doing them at. Good luck fellow NC adjuster. The next property on is:

Property Oct 24-26, 2012 2012 Grand Prairie, TX Registration Deadline: October 11, 2012
Property Oct 24-26, 2012 2012 Arlington, TX Registration Deadline: October 11, 2012

I took my State Farm Certification through Worley. I had to go to the Hammond, LA office and take 2 days worth of classes, followed by 2 tests for estimatics and policy. When I started I was completely unfamiliar with insurance and general construction practices. It was hard for me because of this. However regardless of who you do your certification with, they should provide to you a study guide that you can review before you have to take your certification exams. You can write your lodging expenses off on your taxes (consult your tax specialist) so worst case scenario is "you don't pass but get to write everything for that trip off as business expenses".

Please once you go thru the drill and are successful and have your tax deduction and your State Farm certification and Worley deploys you to Long Island and assigns you your 5 files, keep a blog, a diary and come back here and share your experiences with the rest of us.

We are interested to know how you fared.