Fran Golden is a well-known travel writer and creator of USA Today's Experience Cruise website. She is also chief contributor for the cruise magazine, Porthole. Former travel editor of the Boston Herald, she writes for numerous newspapers, magazines and websites including Virtuoso Life magazine and ShermansCruise.com, and is author or co-author of several travel books including Frommer's EasyGuide to Alaska Cruises and Ports of Call. Fran is married to fellow cruise writer David Molyneaux, and when they are not at sea they make their home in Cleveland.


Michelle Baran is a senior editor at Travel Weekly, where she has been reporting on the travel and river cruise industries since 2007. She has covered everything from the Arab Spring in Egypt to Colombia shedding its cocaine past, from traveling alone as a woman abroad to traveling on a cruise ship along many of the world's most well-known rivers. Baran has sailed the Danube, Rhone, Volga, Mekong, Yangtze, Nile, Amazon, and Irrawaddy, among others. Her cover story about women traveling the globe solo, "Courage and Caution," was a 2014 finalist for a Folio magazine Eddie Award. Baran has also written about river cruising for Travel + Leisure, Travel + Leisure Southeast Asia and Budget Travel. Prior to Travel Weekly, Baran covered the fashion industry at Conde Nast's Footwear News. She received her Masters in Journalism from Northwestern University. Baran lives in San Francisco.

No segment of the travel industry is growing faster than river cruising. But how can you pick the right boat or itinerary? This book answers those questions and more, giving detailed, opinionated advice on the varying characters of the boat companies; why one river or itinerary will likely have more of interest than another; and how not to get taken when booking one of these often pricey vacations.