The one downside is that it is 38-39 minutes from State College, but there is a Walmart and Lowe's only 21 minutes away in Lewistown. There is also a grocery store in Belleville, so you don't need to travel too terribly far if you need some groceries

Aside from the Poconos (which is gentrifying with the speed of a NYC neighborhood), the towns you are thinking of visiting work well. But I do have a suggestion.

First, some history and context:

State Parks: in the 1950s, Maurice Goddard made it his goal that every Pennsylvanian be within 25 miles of a state park and I think he got pretty close to that, so it depends what TYPE of state park you want (there is a subculture that, like Pokemon collecting, seeks to visit all the State Parks).

Crime: there are areas with higher rates of crime, but a lot of those rates come down to particular neighborhoods. For example: Philly has a certain reputation, but there are still low crime neighborhoods.

Internet: Comcast got its start in Philadelphia, so Comcast rules over most of us (and monopolies have no incentive to provide decent service). That being said, there are areas of fiber internet popping up.

NOW! With ALL of this, here is my suggestion: Belleville, PA. It recently got fiber internet, is close to the Lewistown Hospital (and other nursing homes/rehab facilities), is not too far from State College's shops, and there are a TON of Amish folk whose crimes are a bit more infrequent than the average group of people. It is VERY close to the Seven Mountains region that has multiple State Parks, natural areas, hiking trails, and scenic vistas. Belleville is located in a place called The Big Valley, and there are mountains all around.

I also believe Belleville is within your travel distance from those casinos.

Also, there is a REASON Belleville is called Belleville: it is so damn beautiful. I'm sure it has its problems (everywhere does) and while I don't live there nor is it my hometown, I still think it is a picturesque little mountain town

(Added bonus: mineral extraction will be limited to quarrying since Belleville is nestled in the folded mountains physiographic region. So no real need to worry about fracking or strip mining)

Presque Isle: it is the opposite end of the Commonwealth from Philly, but Lake Erie is more of a fresh water inland sea than it is a "lake" and it is well worth a visit. I'm glad that PA DCNR has the peninsula in the state park system because I could EASILY see the NPS trying to make it a national park. (While up there, also be sure to check out Erie Bluffs State Park.)

Fallingwater: even though it was built for ridiculously rich people, has some serious structural problems, and is pretty impractical Frank Lloyd Wright's design is iconic and beautiful.

While in the area: go whitewater rafting on the Youghiogheny River and/or pedal along the Great Allegheny Passage.

Go to Point State Park in Pittsburgh and kayak on all three rivers. While in Pittsburgh, check out Phipps Conservatory.

The Abandoned sections of the PA Turnpike. You can find them by going to the Breezewood exit and taking US Rt 30 east.

Go to any of the Audubon Society viewing sites during the spring or fall migrations.

Tour the Gettysburg battlefield.

The Appalachian Trail Museum in Pine Grove Furnace State Park

See Penn State's Beaver Stadium, and hike the mountain that is the origin for the name of their mascot: Mount Nittany. Also affiliated with Penn State: the Pasto Agricultural Museum (shows the history of agriculture before the internal combustion engine) and Shaver's Creek Environmental Education Center (which has reptiles and birds, including a bald eagle). Also don't pass up checking out the Scotia ghost town while in the area

Hyner View State Park (especially during a fall weekend because you might see handgliders with beautiful fall foliage)

The Quehanna Wild Area which is where testing and research to create nuclear powered airplanes was performed.

The scenic overlook portion of Shikellamy State Park.

Bethlehem, PA around Christmas time.

The Susquehanna River Petroglyphs

The Pennsylvania Farm Show

Centralia, PA

Wellsboro during late may-early June (that's when the Mountain Laurel blooms)

The Boulder field at Hickory Run State Park

The tiny bits of Old Growth Forest like the Snyders-Middleswarth Natural Area, Hearts Content Recreation Site (in the Allegheny National Forest), Cooke Forest, and others.

Found out the main reason getting excursions out of the State College area is hard: insurance.

When the lines installed Positive Train Control (PTC) systems, the company that sold them the PTC systems did not want to be sued at all, should a crash happen. What happened was that the insurance for the North Shore Railroad Company would be SIGNIFICANTLY higher, as in, too high to run any trains for them to run on Norfolk Southern lines.

The main company that has rail cars for excursions is based in Northumberland, but to contract Norfolk Southern to transport the cars is a pricey proposition. It can be done, but it would need to be done twice to get to Lock Haven.

Unfortunately there was about 7 miles of track torn up that, if it still existed, would have allowed for a direct connection between Williamsport and Lock Haven/Mill Hall. To make matters even more complicated, it looks like there has been construction on top of that old railbed, so it isn't a very straightforward repair. (Also there is a rail bridge that needs to be fixed on this line.)

I grew up in Carlisle, family still lives there.

It is a FANTASTIC small town. There are a number of breweries, hard cideries, and lots of small businesses. If you go to the the local hang outs enough and you talk with folks you will find folks who like to have fun. If you are one for books, be sure to check out Whistlestop Bookshop. Be sure to check out the farmers market and if you like ice cream there are several nearby creameries.

There are a number of museums not too far away (check out the Army Heritage and Education Center). Try to pay attention to local events. Ask coworkers who live in the area if anything is happening locally.

Also, you can easily get to a number of other small towns and small cities. Having grown up in Carlisle, I thought nearby towns and cities were a long way away.... They're not. Now that I live in the central mountains, I very viscerally know that they are super close to each other. Since you grew up in North Dakota, you will probably think distances Carlislians think are "too far" are nothing for you.

The rental market in the Harrisburg-Carlisle Metro area is, in a word, hot. Sticking with the corporate housing probably will mean fewer headaches for you.

Circling back around to this: if you live or work in or near State College, reach out to a board member who represents your county. They DO have a time for Public Forum the second Wednesday of the month at 12:30PM, but you can submit emails that get read then as well.

You can also reach out to Dr. John Spychalski who is chair of the "Passenger Excursion Committee."

If citizens raise their voices, we are more likely to see things happen.

So, first off: schools. We just had a landmark legal case about how the legislature funds our school districts. We have a state constitutional right to a "thorough and efficient system of education." The judged ruled that the current system does not meet that standard.

We don't know how this will shake out, but a lot of rural and urban schools could be getting quite a bit more money.

Also, PA's School districts are NOT always county based. We can have a dozen or more districts within a single county. This means that school rivalries extend beyond athletics and go to how well a school is funding the education BECAUSE folks could, in some cases, just move a few houses down and be in a different district. Pennsylvanians also have a tendency to being fiercely defensive of our local control. We make Councils of Governments rather than consolidate Governments, so I have doubts the new school funding method will cause a tidal wave of consolidations because that's just not something we like to do.

That being said, if you still want the kids to go to a Catholic school, you are mostly looking at areas near the Anthracite coal region (Scranton to Pottsville or so) or the region that includes State College, Altoona, and Johnstown (we call ourself the Allegheny region, but that confuses people who think "Allegheny County" which is Pittsburgh).

You could also do the mountains close to the Lehigh Valley or near Harrisburg since there are Catholic schools there as well.

Ideally we would have passenger rail to all major population centers, and it just takes a deliberate choice.

PA has roughly the same population density as Portugal which has 3622 km of rail while PA has 9516km of rail (NOT including SEPTA or PAAC commuter rail systems). This is over 2.5 times more rail.

PA has 13 million residents (or so) which places us between the Netherlands and Belgium which, combined, have less rail than PA.

PA and the nation of England are practically the same size in area, and England had 11,672 km in 2020. England has some of the most heavily used rail system in the world, and they only have a bit over 2000 more km of rail line than we do.

The reason we do not have enough passenger rail in PA is by design and it was a choice. We could have a decent passenger rail system

We could have a line from Harrisburg to York to Hanover to Gettysburg. Or from York to Baltimore.

Agreed. The main challenge there would be needing to work with Norfolk Southern since they own lines outside of the North Shore Railroad Company & Affiliates' control between the Susquehanna Valley and Scranton 😕

Okay, so I will be referring to this map

Surprisingly, Norfolk Southern does NOT own the rails connecting Tyrone to State College.

Instead, there appears to be one company, one Municipal Authority, and one non-profit organization we would need to work with to make this a reality.

First, there is the Nittany & Bald Eagle Railroad which is an arm of The North Shore Railroad Company & Affiliates (NSRC)

Secondly, there is the Susquehanna Economic Development Association -Council of Governments Joint Rail Authority (SEDA-COG JRA) that appears to own the tracks.

Finally, there is the Bellefonte Historical Railroad Society

Now: it would take some doing, but SEDA-COG is an association where the board of directors are elected officials. Meaning, the rails are publicly owned and it looks like the NSRC has a close association with SEDA-COG (I will do some poking around to get more information about that.) But if SEDA owns the tracks, they are ultimately owned by residents meaning folks who live in the area can make requests.

Also, while we are thinking about it, we could even connect Lock Haven to the State College area as well as Tyrone. Even if we just start with game day, that could be helpful (this would need to cooperate with CATA, but that shouldn't be impossible)

And now I will need to move "New Castle" up in my list of Pennsylvania cities to visit

Okay! Cool! In that case I suggest maybe Punxsutawney (some world famous eternal marmot lives here but I would hardly call it a "city'), Johnstown (the Johnstown Flood), Williamsport (Home of the Little League world series), and maybe Altoona (railroad history is big here and it is home of the Horseshoe Curve that connects Pittsburgh with Philadelphia by rail).

OP, out of curiosity, how did you choose which municipalities to be included in your quiz? No offense to any redditor from New Castle, but I was a bit surprised it made the cut

Also just so you are aware, something that is interesting about Pennsylvania political geography is that none of our land can be unincorporated and that mergers and consolidations are uncommon. What happens instead is municipalities work together to offer services but do not formally merge. What this means is that you will enter a Pennsylvania city before you enter the legal city limits. Pittsburgh is a great example of this. (Note number 74: the borough of Mt. Oliver.)

But the way the US Census Bureau counts people is normally based on municipality and doesn't quite match what you would assume is part of the city. So instead we call these all of these municipalities "Suburbs" even when they function as a unit with the larger city

This resistance to consolidation and merger might be a holdover from Philadelphia's 1854 consolidation.

Edit: making it clear no land in PA can be UNincorporated

The Nature Inn at Bald Eagle

Kane, PA is a cute town

There are cool places around State College with a lot of places to stay for (relatively) reasonable pricing

Ohiopyle is great

Ligonier, PA

Erie, if you can stand the cold, is pretty

Carlisle, PA is also cute

First, an acknowledgement that moving "Just for work" has been the usual pattern of human migration in the US for a very long time.

Secondly, if you are indeed moving "just for work" you can always move out "just for work" too.

Personally, I think that Pennsylvania is on the up and up economically. After neoliberal globalization kicked us in the shin/balls/gut, our urban regions and colleges/universities took it on themselves to promote innovation and investment. The transformation feels like it has been taking a long ass time, but we are finally getting there.

Pennsylvania's geography and history has given us a lot of different regional identities (it has lessened recently, but even in the mid 20th century we had something like 5 distinct accents). Even our counties have great variety within them (on the whole that is. Forest County is woods, villages, and a state prison).

What I am getting at here is that your question is flawed. Sure you move to a State, but more importantly is the fact that you are moving to a particular municipality and region.

From how you were talking about the Commonwealth, I doubt we would be the right fit for you.

BUT since you are asking us PA Redditors, I suggest you take time to visit the areas you got responses from. Go to restaurants and ask your servers what the like and don't like about living here. Take walks in the neighborhoods and areas where you would likely spend time if you did move here.

If you want to ask about specific regions, counties, cities, and towns we can offer you more specific help that way, but if you are just coming to r/Pennsylvania to be gobsmacked that we have an economy that has job prospects, we don't have time for that

Ah, yes. Because the problem is clearly NOT the lack of compensation, it's because we haven't found enough people to fool into working long hours for low wages yet!

'The question, he added, is, “What’s the way you can say it without being offensive? … To me, there’s definitely a reasonable way of maintaining my pro-life position without being offensive to others.”'

Don't want to be offensive, eh? Hmmmmmm..... Maybe if you let people be pro-choice? You kinda made it a zero-sum game there pal. Your "pro-life" stance IS what is offensive. If you are personally "pro-life" but allow others to make their own decisions, you are now "pro-choice."

Also, like, if you simultaneously take away the right to abortion while also killing child tax credits, prevent parental leave from being required by law, undercut the affordability of healthcare, you ain't "pro-life" you are "pro-birth" and "pro-suffering."

For all of our advancement, giving birth still has its dangers. Men who are looking to have kids with their wives are pretty well knowledgeable about this and when it comes to choosing between whether you want a certain party to be in office for the next several years or being sure that your life-partner stays alive, most men will choose their partner.

Edit to add: women also are aware of the dangers. That should go unsaid, but if they have a choice between taxes for the next several years and staying alive, they kinda have a vested interest in that whole "living" thing"

(Reason I separated the sexes was to point out that it isn't just a "women's issue." Anti-choice is repugnant to many folks.)

How can you say "outlaw abortion" "without being offensive?" HA, that's a good joke 😂

I mean, yeah, our Public Transit sucks, but that is the result of deliberate policy choices at the state and national level (fueled by special interest group lobbying efforts [car manufacturers and oil companies])

On the bright side, your work and home destinations are both under Red Rose Transit Authority and they are having public meetings this month and next (in person and digitally) to shape the future of BARTA and RRTA. You could ask why there isn't a commuter's route between the two areas they oversee because it is kinda dumb that they don't already have that

Pennsylvania has breweries in the same way a forest gets mushrooms after a spring rain. There are so many of them and I doubt I could successful count them all.

PA is now also getting all of the adult beverage makers: distilleries, cideries, and wineries are becoming common all over the Commonwealth. (As can be seen at the PA Farm Show) Some aren't great, but a lot of the time it is just a difference of taste.

York County? Eh? But they better keep their grubby little paws off of Cumberland and Adams

But if we give them York County to be an exclave we should keep Dillsburg and a two and a half mile strip of land parallel to the Susquehanna

As a resident of Centre County, it is really cool to hear you are thinking of moving here!

That being said: the whole US has an affordable housing crisis (I remember seeing a map that shows there is literally no county with housing that can reasonably be called "affordable") but State College is worse than its surrounding areas. (A ton of parents want to move into the State College School District because it is a quality district).

The mass transit in State College itself is pretty good. It isn't as good once you get outside of the main routes, but there is this new thing called CATA Go (CATA=Centre Area Transit Authority) that has a low cost ($2 USD per trip from what I remember) that is kind of like cheaper Uber.

Before coming over, I would recommend making sure you know what you want to study. Penn State is a world class research university. We have cutting edge research being studied on and near campus. So if you are looking for a STEM education, Penn State is a good choice.

But it is a huge university: you will know mostly people in your program and select extracurricular activities but not many outside of it. Also, it is competitive to get into the closer working relationship with professors, especially as an undergraduate student.

But Pennsylvania has so many universities and colleges. Even as a lifelong resident of PA, I am still learning of new universities and colleges in the Commonwealth. You might find a number of private universities that might offer more scholarships to international students. (I know of one, Susquehanna University, that requires all students to have a cross cultural experience [Not required of international students, obviously]. Because they want to promote global connections, they might have some financial aid options that could make them cheaper than Penn State. There are almost certainly other colleges and universities that have similar goals, but I haven't looked at many colleges at all since I was accepted to grad school over a decade ago.)

Philly is a tough city. Most folks are good people, but they don't put up with fools (or individuals who diss their sports teams). Politically it is solidly on the political Left. If you are smart, it is pretty safe.

Pittsburgh is a more sedate city (still tough, but not necessarily in your face). The city itself is politically Left, but the suburbs becoming more politically right the further you get from the city. A bit safer than Philly.

There are also the areas around Harrisburg, Lancaster, Williamsport, Bethlehem/Allentown, Scranton, and Erie in addition to State College, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, so don't be afraid of looking beyond. All of these listed areas have a variety of colleges and universities. On the whole, PA is pretty safe for having over 12 million residents. (I saw one article claiming it is the 11th safest in the country.)

As for places to eat and sleep, the average Penn State student has roommates and try to cook inexpensively. There is a free food pantry for Penn State students and one for State College residents.

As for the expense of living: after food and shelter, it is as pricey as you make it. State College is great if you like the outdoors and want to see forests and ancient (short) mountains. Pennsylvania's state parks have no entrance fee and are free to enter and enjoy. Penn State also has free/low cost places for students to experience music, theater, and art.

Hopefully this provides some helpful information.