Pennsylvania
including Pittsburg, Philadelphia
From the 50 state
visitor guide :
42 Pa.C.S.2019 §§9799.10 through 9799.9
Registration Triggers and Deadlines:
Within 3 business
days of establishing residence, becoming employed, or attending school. 3 business days for updates. If
fails to establish residence but nevertheless resides in state, shall register
as transient. §9799.19.
Visitors: “Residence” means place where domiciled for 30 days or
more w/in a calendar year. “Transient”
means no residence
but nevertheless resides in state in a temporary place or dwelling, including a
homeless shelter or park. §9799.12.
Per the Lancaster State Police office, PA has no specific time limit for
visiting registrants but staying more than 30 days per calendar year or
becoming employed or attending school establishes residency and would trigger a
requirement to register. Updated June 2021.
List of registration
sites: www.pameganslaw.state.pa.us/VerificationSites
Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:
None. Registry website supposedly only shows: Sexually violent offenders, Sexually violent
predators, Sexually violent delinquent children.
Duration & updates:
15 years to life. Updates: T1 – annual, T2 – 6 mo., T3 & SVP – quarterly, Transient – monthly
A Pennsylvania Update: April 2025
In theory, Pennsylvania should be a pretty easy state to get along with as a registered visitor. Their SOR statute states that “Residence” means a place where a registrant is domiciled for 30 days or more within a calendar year. Also, there are no statewide or local residency or presence requirements. Thank you to PARSOL for providing me with the citations for 2 court cases that ensure this - Fross v. County of Allegheny, 20 A.3d 1193 and Lake Naomi Club, Inc. v. Rosado, 285 A.3d 1 (Pa. Cmmw. Ct. 2022). They also have pointed out that the state SOR office is back to answering the phone these days which is also a help. These updates are significant enough – and Pennsylvania is a significant enough state – that I am updating and re-posting the 50 State Visitors Guide chart on this site to include them.
Unfortunately “Transient” means the registrant has no residence but nevertheless “resides in the state,” but while the word “residence” is defined, the word “resides” is not, so … if you’re traveling through Pennsylvania, how long do you have to be there before you “reside” without having a “residence” …? To the average traveler this may seem like a ridiculous question, but as registered citizens you and I know it’s far from academic. You can’t count on the state police officer who pulls you over for having a blown tail light to give you the interpretation you wanted.
I resolved to resolve this uncertainty on a trip I made to the Northeast May 2021. After staying overnight at a PA state park campground I visited the Lancaster State Police office (which is also a Registration Verification Site) and was referred there to speak to an officer who admitted he was “not the sex offender expert” (then why was he assigned to answer this question? Was the “expert” out of the office?).
After going back to his office and reading the statute he nevertheless opined that PA has no specific time limit for visiting registrants but staying more than 30 days per calendar year or becoming employed or attending school establishes residency and would trigger a requirement to register. That confirmed the same conclusion I reached after reading the statute.
Most recent visit: Pittsburg, May 2025
See the sights, skip the downtown
As part of my 2025 Northeast road trip I passed through Pennsylvania both coming and going from Iowa. I had, as noted above, no fear of overstaying my visitor’s grace period or of violating any state or local restriction because there are none.
It so happened I first entered from West Virginia on the morning of the Friday of Memorial Day weekend. My goal for that day was to visit my first Big City – Pittsburg. Should be pretty busy on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, right? Answer – Nope! Not unless you count all that traffic trying to get out of town on their way to someplace other than Pittsburg for a holiday weekend!
My plan was to see the sights during the day, then go downtown to see their famous riverfront and have dinner before retiring to my waiting motel room. My first stop, however, was the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum near Washington, PA which was on my way to Pittsburg. If you love train museums like I do you’ll love this one.
In Pittsburg, I rode the Duquesne Incline, visited the Andy Warhol Museum (Wow!) and it wasn’t until after 4 pm that I got to the Carnegie Museums, of which there are several, and which at least on that holiday Friday were closing at 5 pm so all I had time for was art – which was great art but now I know you have to set aside at least half a day for these museums. Next time I’m in the region I’ll do that.
I didn’t go see any sports facilities or events because I’m not interested and you couldn’t get tickets for Barry Manalow that night anyway. Instead I went downtown to experience what I had always heard was a very successful riverfront and downtown renewal.
Wow what a disappointment! Point State Park (at the confluence of Pittsburg’s “Three Rivers”) was still undergoing renovations and was lifeless on that unseasonably cold and grey afternoon. The keynote downtown redevelopment project, Gateway Center, is a high-rise office complex that becomes a dark and scary place as soon as all the employees escape to the burbs at 5:00 pm, and that effect was accentuated by everyone having fled to the mountains that weekend.
As for Pittsburg’s anemic little downtown strip, few people were there to party that evening but I did find a good little Mediterranean restaurant for dinner.
Most recent visit: Allegheny Mountains, May-June 2025
Saturday of Memorial Day weekend my goal was no more ambitious than to explore the Allegheny Mountains of western PA on my way to a waiting bungled reservation at a Motel 6 near Wilkes-Barre. There are two big federal and state forests – Allegheny National Forest and a cluster of connected state forests – and it’s all quite beautiful. The only problem is there aren’t many significant destinations, either natural or man-made, so I spent most of that day pleasure driving and looking at small towns. The next morning I was on to New Jersey.
On the return leg of my Northeastern US road trip I entered Pennsylvania from New York State. Again my goal was only to explore a different part of the Alleghenies on my way to a campground near Sharon, PA. The next morning I was on my way to Cleveland.
Small Town Notes:
New Bethlehem – Good. Local industry – Smuckers.
Ridgway – The whole downtown is
a National Register District. It’s not
fair to the other towns.
Johnsonburg – Good. Local industry – paper mill.
St. Mary’s – good.
Renovo – An old company town
composed mainly of row houses. The
crumbling downtown runs alongside the old railroad.
Bradford – Nice downtown but
otherwise just okay.
Kane – Good. Had lunch at a “garbage cuisine” storefront.
Greenville – No judgement. Has a lot of brick streets. Growth over time has created small town sprawl without benefiting the town itself.
Previous visits: Philadelphia, 2023-24
In December 2023 I traveled from Florida with my now ex-wife but still Best Friend Forever to visit relatives and participate in a Wreaths Across America event on Long Island. We had decided ahead of time to reserve a hotel room one night in Philadelphia so we could take in a few sights the next morning before continuing on to New Jersey.
As with our previous stops in Virginia, my ex-wife had never been to Philadelphia’s historic sites before and she was very impressed with Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. I was too even though I’d seen them before. At lunchtime we asked one of the sales ladies at the Liberty Bell gift shop where to get a good Philly Cheesesteak and she suggested the Reading Terminal Marketplace. Wow! It’s like other downtown markets such as Faneuil Hall or Charleston Market, but even bigger with all kinds of stuff – including several Philly Cheesesteak options. I also bought baked goods at one of the semi-authentic looking Amish stalls.
We spent a couple of hours just at the Reading Market but after that it was time to get moving – we had a hotel reservation that night in far northern New Jersey.
In April 2024 my bff & I were again traveling from New Jersey and decided to stop in Philadelphia again to see a few sites we had missed on the previous trip, specifically Betsey Ross’s house and Benjamin Franklin’s Museum. Then we visited Valley Forge on our way to the same hotel in “downtown” Intercourse where she had stayed two years before (see below). Although she enjoyed all the stops we made, she was disappointed that left no time for touring Pennsylvania Dutch country, neither that afternoon nor the next morning on the way out of state.
Previous visits: 2022-23
In July 2022 I traveled thru Pennsylvania while tagging along with my family on their trip to the Northeast. My ex-wife likes Pennsylvania Dutch Country very much. I find it to be hopelessly commercialized. What must it be like to be an actual Amish or Mennonite person trying to go about your life surrounded by billboards and tacky trinket shops and fake buggy rides? You have my sympathy, folks.
So-called "historic train ride" in Strasburg, PA
Nevertheless she had reserved a hotel room right in “downtown” Intercourse. I stayed at the very same state park I had the year before, about 40 miles away. We spent way too much time at that tacky tourist village in Intercourse, but the upside to that place is that trapping all the tourists there keeps us away from the locals.
Later that day we were all rushing eastbound on I-78. They spent the night at a hotel in Stroudsburg while I had reserved a campground in nearby Hickory Run State Park. We were splitting up after that – they were on their way to Long Island to spend four days with my ex-inlaws, while I was headed for Maine to go whale watching.
On the southbound leg of our Northeast trip we came back thru Pennsylvania, this time to visit Hershey’s Chocolate World and Hersheypark. I was roped into this part of the trip because our granddaughter wanted more than anything to ride on some of the scariest rollercoasters in that theme park, and although Mom insisted that she be accompanied by an adult neither she nor Grandma were willing to do the accompanying.
American Antique Car Assn. Museum, Hershey PA
Wow, some of those rides were truly terrifying! I told my granddaughter that going on them was something I would consider to be an item on my bucket list, but don’t expect me to do that again!
In May 2023 I again passed through Pennsylvania on my way from West Virginia to New Jersey. This time I could skip Pennsylvania Dutch Country, and would have skipped Hershey too until I saw a sign for the American Antique Car Association Museum. Wow – way cool!
From there it was on to Hickory Run State Park to stay the night before proceeding to New Jersey. It also so happened that on the return leg of my journey, which took me through Upstate New York, I made a little side trip into Upstate PA to see the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. Yes there is such a thing and it’s really spectacular!
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