Frommer's Easyguide to River Cruising

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.

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 theMiami Herald, New York Daily News and Virtuoso Life. When she is not at sea, Fran and her partner, David Molyneaux reside in Oberlin, Ohio.

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 toTravel 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.