Fran Golden is a well-known travel writer and the cruise expert blogger for USA Today's Experience Cruise website. She is also a contributing editor and chief blogger for the cruise magazine, Porthole. Former travel editor of the Boston Herald, she writes for numerous newspapers and magazines including the Miami Herald, New York Daily News and Virtuoso Life. When she is not at sea, Fran and her partner, David Molyneaux reside in Oberlin, Ohio.



Gene Sloan writes about cruising for USA TODAY and oversees several USA TODAY-owned cruise websites. His stories are distributed by the Gannett News Service to more than 80 other U.S. news outlets. He has written about travel for more than 20 years and sailed on nearly 100 ships. He lives with his wife and three daughters in Moorestown, NJ.

Both the Inside Passage of Alaska and the Gulf of Alaska are among the single most popular of all cruise destinations, and multitudes of cruisers will welcome this expert assistance in choosing a cruise and the activities on ship and land that the cruise offers. We're proud that our Easy Guide to Alaska cruising is by two foremost experts on the subject: Fran Golden, who writes about cruising for USA Today, and Gene Sloan,, who oversees the two important cruise websites of USA Today. Together, they have been on far more than 100 cruises, and the results of that experience are strikingly evident in this well-regarded guidebook.