I’m a retired NYPD officer with the Anti-Terrorism Unit, Transit Special Operations Division — and I spent years doing something most travel bloggers have never done: protecting tourists for a living.
During my career I served across multiple specialized units within the NYPD Transit Special Operations Division:
- Anti-Terrorism Unit — protecting the NYC subway system from criminal and terrorism-related threats, including CCTV monitoring, plainclothes surveillance operations, and proactive transit security enforcement
- Transit Impact Task Force — high-visibility crime suppression and deterrence across the NYC subway system, focused on reducing criminal activity in mass transit environments
- Transit Manhattan Task Force — Midtown and Lower Manhattan tourist corridors including Times Square and Penn Station, concentrating on pickpocket suppression, tourist-targeted theft prevention, and rapid-response policing in the highest-volume public spaces in America
Across all three units I worked both uniformed and plainclothes in the exact crowd environments — transit hubs, tourist corridors, high-density public spaces — that your next vacation destination is going to look a lot like.
My specialized training includes:
- Behavioral Observation and Suspicious Activity Recognition
- Hostile Surveillance Detection
- Counterterrorism Personal Radiation Detection
- Advanced Explosive Trace Detection
- Certified Basic Plainclothes Officer
- COBRA / Cohort Coordinated Response Training
- CIMS and NIMS Federal Emergency Management
After retiring from the NYPD, I moved to Central Florida — home to Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, SeaWorld, Port Canaveral, and Port Tampa Bay — and opened a cruise-focused travel agency.
That combination — law enforcement expertise in high-volume tourist environments, federal threat-recognition certifications, and hands-on cruise travel industry experience — is what makes this blog different from every other travel safety resource on the internet.
I write the guides I wish every tourist had before they left home. No generic tips. No recycled advice. Real operational knowledge, translated into practical guidance you can actually use on your next vacation.
Whether you’re boarding a cruise ship, walking through a Caribbean port, or navigating a theme park with your family — I’ve worked those environments. I know what the threats look like. And now I’m going to show you.