What should I avoid in Philadelphia?

Pat's King of Steaks and Geno's Steaks face each other across 9th Street and Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia. The neon rivalry is the whole show. The steaks are thin, the rolls are soft, and a whiz wit now costs roughly $15 to $18. Few Philadelphians eat at either one. Go to John's Roast Pork on Snyder Avenue instead, a counter by the rail yards that chops ribeye onto a seeded roll, but it keeps short daytime hours, so check before you go. Dalessandro's in Roxborough is the other strong pick, and you'll smell the grill and onions at the door. Short on time? DiNic's in Reading Terminal Market makes a roast pork Italian with sharp provolone and garlicky broccoli rabe that beats both 9th Street corners. Don't worry about the ordering lingo: at any Philadelphia counter, "whiz wit" means Cheez Whiz with fried onions.

Independence Hall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, needs a timed-entry ticket from March through December, and on busy days every slot can be gone by 10am for visitors who arrive without one. Reserve on recreation.gov, where the booking fee is $1. The Liberty Bell Center needs no ticket, but in July its line along Market Street can run 45 minutes. Through the glass wall on the Chestnut Street side, you can see the bell, crack and all, in about a minute. The free exhibit inside is decent when the line is short, which tends to be after 4pm on weekdays. Skip the costumed photo hawkers on Independence Mall and the hop-on trolley loop. Every major Old City site is within a 15-minute walk of 5th and Chestnut.

Reading Terminal Market at noon on a Saturday is a shoulder-to-shoulder shuffle through the smell of frying scrapple and cinnamon, and every stool is taken. Go on a weekday before 11am. The Pennsylvania Dutch stalls, including Dutch Eating Place and Beiler's Bakery, close on Sundays, which means a Sunday visit leaves you without the warm doughnuts and apple dumplings. At the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the line for the Rocky statue at the bottom of the east steps can run 20 minutes on fall weekends, so run the 72 steps, take your photo from the top, and go inside. Plenty of visitors climb the steps and never buy a ticket. They miss van Gogh's Sunflowers and the Duchamp galleries a few rooms away.

Philadelphia scores 5.2/10 for solo-traveler safety (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), and most of that risk sits in a handful of neighborhoods a first-timer has no reason to visit. Kensington Avenue, under the Market-Frankford El north of York-Dauphin station, has one of the largest open-air drug markets on the East Coast. For sightseeing, keep to the El between 2nd Street and 30th Street. We'd also skip driving into Old City or Center City: Philadelphia Parking Authority officers watch the meters on Chestnut and Walnut closely, and a ticket can land within minutes of a meter running out. From PHL, SEPTA's Airport Line reaches Jefferson Station in about 25 minutes, which usually beats a taxi in rush-hour traffic on I-95.