"From Alabama to Zion National Park"

Before I wrecked my life and ended up on Florida’s Sex Offender registry I always intended to travel in my retirement. Now, after prison and probation, I am in fact retired, and “free,” and have not given up my dream of seeing natural wonders and historic sites, visiting great cities, traveling to as many places as possible within the restrictions placed on me as a registered citizen.

While I may attempt traveling the world in the future, everything I’ve heard and read about International Megan’s Law requirements makes it sound difficult and even dangerous for a registered person. I therefore decided that my own home country is a pretty big place that, so far at least, nobody can keep my out of. Including all of its states and territories the United States spans half the globe and extends from the arctic to the equator. A guy could spend his whole retirement traveling this great land and never really see all of it.

As many of you may have discovered, however, interstate travel as a registered citizen isn’t as simple as getting in your car and driving away. Unless you don’t mind the prospect of inadvertently violating the registry laws of either your own state or whatever state you’re in at the time and ending up back in prison for a registry violation, it’s crucial to be conversant with and obey the registry laws of every state you plan to pass thru, which for me is every US state and territory.

However, all of this research – whether the state laws themselves, written responses to letters, or the oral responses by a random person in a state SOR office – may bear no relation at all to what you or I may experience if pulled over by an over-eager redneck sheriff’s deputy because you have a blown tail light. Do you want to be the first person to test the limits of any of this? I’ll bet the answer to that is NO.

So be careful out there, and safe travels!
Legal Disclaimer

I AM NOT AN ATTORNEY. THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE LEGAL ADVICE AND SHOULD NOT SUBSTITUTE FOR QUALIFIED LEGAL ADVICE.

Because sex offender laws are frequently revised by legislatures and reviewed by courts, the most current version of the applicable laws should be consulted and can generally be found by using your search engine to locate the statutes referenced on this site. This website does not include all laws that may apply to registrants in any particular state.


NEW! Updated 4/25! State & Territorial Visitor Registration Laws Guide

Click HERE. It'll pop up on your screen in a separate window.

NEW! Updated 6/25! Research on Local Restrictions

Derek Logue of OnceFallen is conducting research on local registry restrictions around the US, prioritizing the states with the worst local restrictions first. Be sure to check this site out if you are concerned about local laws.

Click HERE to see this research.


Updated 9/24! State & Territorial Visitor Registration Laws for FORMER & LONG-TERM Registrants

MANY REGISTRANTS DO NOT UNDERSTAND that most states have registration laws that apply to out-of-state visitors even if you have served your registration duty in your state of offense and are no longer required to register there. Violating these states' laws during your visit can get you caught in these states' registries or even incarcerated EVEN THOUGH you have been removed from your own state's registry!

Furthermore, you may be surprised to learn that some states' registration laws may not apply to visiting registrants who have, in your state of offense, served your registration duty for the number of years specified by law in the state you are visiting - even if you are still on the registry in your state of offense.

Because confusion surrounding this issue will be a growing problem as more and more Americans (including myself) become long-term or former registrants, I have researched the registration laws of every U.S. state and territory related to this issue.

Click HERE to see this new research.


Recorded 10/24: My 2024 ACSOL conference domestic travel presentation

I have given several presentations on domestic travel at NARSOL and other national conferences. My presentation at the 2024 ACSOL conference was recorded and is now available as a You Tube video.

This is about an hour long but contains a lot of information about domestic travel, so Click HERE to watch.


The Traveling Registrant

The Once Fallen website offers this must-read information for all registrants planning to travel. Click here: http://www.oncefallen.com/travel.html

Unwelcome Images

My personal story of prison, probation and ... redemption? is posted on Medium. If you're interested you can click here:

https://therabbitisin.com/unwelcome-images-c06a3760b11a

Your first hurdle:

Permission to leave town

My state of offense (Florida) has a registry law that, like those of many other states, is completely silent on the question of what notice I as a registered person have to provide in the event that I intend to travel out of state temporarily but have no intention of establishing any “permanent residence,” “temporary residence” or “transient residence” in any other state. Instead, Florida’s SOR law reads as follows:

“A sexual offender who intends to establish a permanent, temporary, or transient residence in another state or jurisdiction other than the State of Florida shall report in person to the sheriff of the county of current residence within 48 hours before the date he or she intends to leave this state to establish residence in another state or jurisdiction … The sexual offender shall provide to the sheriff the address, municipality, county, [and] state … of intended residence … The department shall notify the statewide law enforcement agency, or a comparable agency, in the intended state [or] jurisdiction … of the sexual offender’s intended residence. The failure of a sexual offender to provide his or her intended place of residence is punishable as [a third degree felony].”

943.0435(7) FS.

Apparently, the drafters of Florida’s SOR law – and the many similarly worded statutes of other US states – never anticipated that a registered person would ever leave their state for any other reason than to establish a “permanent residence,” “temporary residence” or “transient residence” wherever they're going. Therefore I assume that I and many of you could legitimately assume we would be within our legal rights to just leave our state without telling anybody as long as you have no intention of, and scrupulously avoid, establishing any kind of residence that would violate your state’s statutes.

However, I DO NOT recommend doing this under any circumstances.

Why? Because there’s a 120% chance that your local sheriff’s department believes you have to tell them you’re leaving and where you’re going no matter what your state’s SOR law says or doesn’t say. Suppose you get pulled over somewhere for having a blown tail light. The sheriff’s deputy looks you up and discovers you’re an out-of-state registered offender. Next, he calls local law enforcement in your home state and asks, “Hey, did y’all know this guy was here?” They of course will say “No, we didn’t even know he left our state and we think that’s a registry violation – he is an ABSCONDER!” at which point you’ll be arrested, handcuffed and sent back to prison.

I don’t know about you, but that’s not how I want to spend my vacation.

Therefore I strongly suggest that you visit your local sheriff’s department or registry office and inform them of your intention to travel. I did this for the first time in October 2020, and have traveled out of state frequently since then, each time making sure to do so “within 48 hours before the date he or she intends to leave this state.”

Having gained some experience with traveling while registered I offer you the following advice:

Always notify your local law enforcement of your intention to travel and provide as much detail as possible about your travel plans. In particular, it helps to have at least one specific destination for your trip. Your local law enforcement is expecting you to have a destination. You probably do have at least one destination, and if it’s not a friend or relative’s home you probably had to make some kind of reservation ahead of time. Either way you know at least one address where you’ll be, so give it to the staff person behind the glass. They will feel more comfortable with this even if your plans include extended time to get to and return from the specific destination(s), during which you’ll be enjoying yourself.

I have found that if I give a general description of your travel, like some of the states you’ll be passing through, the staff person will happily enter that onto whatever form their filling out as “additional notes.” This may actually help you in case you get pulled over someplace because when the sheriff’s deputy calls your home state it’s all right there in the computer.

Recently I established a summer home in Iowa. Unlike Florida and many other states, Iowa’s registry law explicitly, but clumsily, addresses out-of-state travel. It says:

“[A] sex offender, within five business days of a change, shall also appear in person to notify the sheriff of the county of principal residence [i.e. the principle residence in Iowa], of any location in which the offender is staying when away from the principal residence of the offender for more than five days, by identifying the location and the period of time the offender is staying in such location.” 692A.105 IS.

While I was at my new Iowa sheriff’s department registering, getting photographed, fingerprinted and providing a DNA sample, I took the opportunity to ask how travel was going to work in my new state. I pointed out that although I can always provide a destination when traveling, there is no way I’ll be able provide locations and addresses ahead of time for every campground or motel room I might be staying at along the way.

The lady behind the bullet-proof glass stated that their policy for this type of travel is that I will need to keep a travel log for each trip, which I will need to turn in upon my return. This just shows how local sheriff’s departments come up with some policy to deal with these situations. As you know from reading elsewhere on this blog, I recommend you always keep a travel log as well as all receipts just in case you need to prove your whereabouts, so this sheriff’s department requirement, while ridiculous, turns out not to be a problem for me or anyone following my recommendations.

Tuesday, August 26, 2025

 Nevada

From the 50 state visitor guide 

Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. 2019  §§179B and 179D (Effective Oct. 1, 2018)

AWA Compliant

Registration Triggers and Deadlines:

48 hours for initial registration and updates; updates may be in person.  §§179D.460, 479D.480.  However, Nevada SOR office states that visitors for less than 30 days are not placed on the SOR registry but on a separate “visitors registry” that is not public. Visitors must “check in” within 48 hours & provide info to law enforcement. Return to “check out” when departing the state. The “visitors registry” including the dates of your visit(s) is available to law enforcement agencies only.

This SOR office info updated & confirmed Apr. 2021.

Confirmed by Las Vegas Metro Police Dept. Oct. 2021.

Also: North Las Vegas Police “OffenderWatch” Safety Tips

https://sheriffalerts.com/cap_safety_1.php?office=54127

“Do I have to register as a sex offender in North Las Vegas if I am only visiting? Sex offenders who will be visiting North Las Vegas and will be staying in North Las Vegas for more than 48 hours, must register as “Sex Offender – Visitor”.” (emphasis added)

Residency/Presence and Other Restrictions:

No statewide restrictions.

Duration & updates:

15 years to life. §179D.480.

Procedure available for removal from registry after departure.

Las Vegas Metro Police Dept.

Nevada (supposedly) has a separate “visitors registry”

Nevada (supposedly) is one of a handful of states that, by policy, treats a statutory very short (in Nevada’s case 48 hours) visitor registration requirement as a “duty to check in” but holds SO visitor information separately pending a commitment to depart within a specified time (up to 30 days); your info becomes part of a “visitors registry” that is not made public. Other states that do this are Alaska, South Dakota and Rhode Island.

I first became aware of this separate “visitors registry” while calling every state SOR office as part of my research in 2020. The nice lady at the Nevada SOR office told me all about it. Then, following well known advice to not necessarily accept at face value anything some random person at a SOR office says, I called back in April 2021 to re-ask the question, and the same nice lady took my call. She even remembered me from my previous call. She gave me the same answer, with a few additional clarifying details.

And yet, there seems to be nothing on the Nevada SOR website about this.

In October 2021 I was passing through Nevada anyway on my way from California to Utah. So, restricting myself to two partial days in-state and foregoing all the potential sins and delights of Las Vegas, my one and only stop was the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (see photo). My sole purpose was to find out if they knew anything about this separate unpublished “visitors registry.”

If there’s one thing I always say about police registry offices it’s this: “The person sitting at the desk behind the bulletproof glass is without a doubt the least knowledgeable person in the whole building.” That was certainly the case here. She had never heard of any “visitors registry.” However, with a little prodding I was able to get her to go ask her supervisor about it, and when she returned a few minutes later she smiled cheerfully and said, “Yes, there is a visitors registry, and as long as you check in within 48 hours of your arrival, and give us all the information about your visit, and come back to check out before you leave, you will go on that visitors registry.” 

So as far as I can tell, Nevada’s unpublished “visitors registry” is a real thing.  But even now, years later, I haven’t built up the nerve to walk into a Nevada police station and actually APPLY TO GET ON any registry – reassurances or not!  I’m not ruling out putting this state to the ultimate test in the future, but for now I’m too much of a chicken.

You may be wondering why any state SOR office, whether in Nevada, Alaska, Rhode Island or elsewhere, would go out of their way to create a separate visitors registry when it’s not spelled out in state law. As a person who worked as a government bureaucrat his entire career (until I ruined my life), I’m confident I know the answer: work avoidance.

You see, these states with separate visitors registries have very short visitor registration requirements, but they also have standardized procedures available to remove you from their registries after you leave (unlike Tennessee, Florida and 13 other states that keep you on their registries forever in order to pad their numbers and get more federal funding).

What this means for a SOR office (or sheriff’s department) bureaucrat is that any time a visitor is forced to register, they have to do all the work of adding that person to their registry and posting it on their website. Then as soon as that person leaves the state they have to do all the work of removing that person from their registry and their website.  That’s double the work for somebody they really couldn’t care less about. Thus is born the separate, low effort “visitors registry.”

Once I got home from my 2021 trip I tried one last internet search to see if I could find something, anything about Nevada’s “visitor’s registry.” Nothing on the state SOR site, but my Google search did turn up one document:

North Las Vegas Police “OffenderWatch” Safety Tips

https://sheriffalerts.com/cap_safety_1.php?office=54127

“Do I have to register as a sex offender in North Las Vegas if I am only visiting? Sex offenders who will be visiting North Las Vegas and will be staying in North Las Vegas for more than 48 hours, must register as “Sex Offender – Visitor”.” (emphasis added)

The way this is worded, it sure makes it sound like a separate visitors registry, which further confirms that such a thing exists.

Hey look!  These guys are open weekends & holidays!

But if this thing really exists, and the Nevada SOR office is happy to tell you all about it, how come NOBODY else seems to know about it?  Not the lady behind the bulletproof glass at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.  Not hardly anybody visiting Las Vegas – because if people were walking into the registry office asking to sign up for it even occasionally, the lady behind the bulletproof glass would be aware of it, right?  Not anybody who has ever spoken up at any ACSOL monthly phone call – and again, they talk about Nevada all the time because most of their members are next door in California.

That’s what continues to give me the creeps about the whole thing.

Most recent visit: August 2025

In early August 2025 I was on my way from Oregon to Utah and that necessarily took me through Nevada.  Before entering at the state’s incredibly remote northwest corner on SR 140 I made sure to gas up and pick up supplies in Lakeview, OR.  My mission was to get to the Utah state line and the Bonneville Salt Flats within the 48 hours allowed by the Nevada registry.  That’s not difficult since there’s nothing worth seeing in this part of Nevada anyway.  Passing through the Sheldon National Antelope Refuge and seeing no antelope kind of set the tone.  Instead I occupied myself by making a few

Small Town Notes:

Winnemucca – Not much to see here.  The whole town seems to be migrating towards I-80.

Battle Mountain – I read or saw somewhere that this town was “Voted Armpit of America.”  It’s not quite that bad – allow me to suggest Wendover, UT (see below) if you want to make a comparison.  But it is a jumble of rotting mobile homes.


West Wendover, NV as seen from Wendover, UT. Note that the front faces of the Montego Bay and Nugget casino buildings both go right up to the state line.  The Shell station is in UT.

West Wendover, NV & Wendover, UT – There is a military base just outside of Wendover, UT so that makes this just about the dumpiest base employee town I’ve ever witnessed, with mobile homes rotting into the ground.  West Wendover, NV is a failed military retiree mobile home community, where veterans could retire out in the desert and be close to base services.  Except it’s deteriorating and kind of not completed.  Also the only person I saw while driving around was a young latino boy walking his bicycle, which doesn’t fit well with the idea this is still a retirement community.

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  Nevada From the  50 state visitor guide   Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. 2019   §§179B and 179D (Effective Oct. 1, 2018) AWA Compliant Regis...