Born October 2, 1953, in Sewickley, PA; son of Edgar and Mary Beth Wilson; married Cheryl Keefe. Education: University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill, B.A., 1973; studied at American Academy of Dramatic Arts, 1974. Memberships: Knighted by the Sovereign Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem-Knights of Malta, 2014; International Fellow of Explorers Club, 2005; Quaker; Wall of Tolerance, SPLC, founding member, Amnesty Leadership Group, Amnesty International. Addresses: Home: Chamonix-Mt. Blanc, France E-mail: pilgrimstales@yahoo.com.

peace and human rights advocate.

Literary award, University of Pittsburgh, for poetry; photo award, National Geographic Traveler, 1999, for photography; photo award, Islands magazine, 1999, for photography; IPPY Award, Independent Publishers, 2005, for Yak Butter Blues; Lowell Thomas Gold Award for best travel book, Society of American Travel Writers Foundation, 2009, for Along the Templar Trail: Seven Million Steps for Peace; shortlisted for Book of the Year (adventure category), ForeWord Reviews Magazine, 2008, for Along the Templar Trail; Book of the Year Bronze Award (travel essays category), ForeWord Reviews 2010, for Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking X the Alps; First American to receive St. OlavËs Cross, The Sovereign Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, 2014; Eagle Scout Award with gold, silver and bronze palms.

WRITINGS:

• Yak Butter Blues: A Tibetan Trek of Faith, Heliographica (San Francisco, CA), 2004, 2nd edition, Pilgrim's Tales (Paia, HI), 2006.
• Dead Men Don't Leave Tips: Adventures X Africa, Pilgrim's Tales (Paia, HI), 2005.
• Along the Templar Trail: Seven Million Steps for Peace, Pilgrim's Tales (Paia, HI), 2008.
• (Author of introduction) On a Donkey's Back (collection of Nepalese poetry and paintings), Yileen Press (Vineland, NJ), 2008.
• Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking X the Alps, Pilgrims Tales (Paia, HI), 2010.

Travel features, photos and adventure stories have appeared in newspapers, magazines and on websites, including Backpacking Light, Ocean Magazine, Toward Freedom Magazine, International Living, Honolulu Advertiser, Tacoma News Tribune, Grand Rapids Press, Altitudes Magazine, Tourism Review, Travel World International, Wide World Travel, Off shore Living, Escape from America, Away.com, Outside.com, Bootsnall.com, Travelosophy.com, Gonomad.com, and many others.

Contributor to anthologies, including Wounds of War: Poets for Peace, PublishAmerica (Frederick, MD), 2006, They Lived to Tell the Tale: True Stories of Adventure from the Legendary Explorers Club, Lyons Press/Globe Pequot Press (Guilford, CT), 2008, The Walkabout Chronicles: Epic Journeys by Foot, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016, and Hip Poetry, 2019. Contributor of essay and photographs to Naïve & Abroad: Limping 600 Miles across Spain: A Pilgrimage through History, Marcus Wilder, iUniverse (Bloomington, IN), 2008. Provided the Introduction, photos and an essay to The Pilgrimage Chronicles: Embrace the Quest, Sacred World Explorations, 2017.

Author's works have been translated into many languages, including German and Spanish.

Brandon Wilson is an award-winning travel writer, photographer, and explorer. He has hiked many of the world's most famous pilgrimage paths and explored more than one hundred countries, oftentimes on foot, backpacking for thousands of miles, often with his wife.

Wilson published his first book, Yak Butter Blues: A Tibetan Trek of Faith, in 2004. Mayra Calvani, writing in Curled Up with a Good Book, described the book as "an engrossing, fascinating read sure to be relished by those readers interested in adventure travel and the Tibetan culture."

Wilson's second book, Dead Men Don't Leave Tips: Adventures X Africa, was published in 2005. Mayra Calvani, writing for Pilgrim's Tales, noted: "The author writes with honesty and a sharp eye for detail, making this an invaluable amalgam of information for readers of adventure travel."

In 2008, Wilson published Along the Templar Trail: Seven Million Steps for Peace. Calvani's review, this time in the Boston Globe, stated: "I immensely enjoyed reading this book. Besides being a skillful traveler, the author is also a skillful writer and this shows in his beautiful flowing prose, keen observations and wit." Calvani observed that Wilson's writing style mixes "a marvelous sense of Zen with good humor."

Wilson's fourth book, Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking X the Alps, was published in late 2010 following a trek that he and his wife made on the Via Alpina for over 1200 miles along the length of the Alps. Sheila Kasparek stated in a Library Journal review: "This lighthearted hiking narrative reflects the positives of such an experience: overcoming hardship, laughing at their inability to find trail blazes, Europe's apparent fear of switchbacks on trails ascending 1000-plus meters per col, and the bond and struggle with your trail partner."

Brandon Wilson told CA: "Growing up in Pennsylvania's Ohio River Valley, I've been writing since I was in my teens when I contributed to local newspapers and won my first literary award at seventeen. Adventure traveling--and inspiring others to discover life's possibilities through long-distance walking--influences my writing today. My work transcends the usual travel genre, combining history, philosophy, politics, and spirituality. Three of my books so far have helped advocate peace and tolerance (in Tibet, Africa, and the Middle East) while allowing readers to come along on a true modern expedition of discovery.

"Although I'd backpacked through nearly one hundred countries, I discovered something totally unique while walking 650 miles across Tibet--the pleasure of 'deliberate travel.' Slowing down, walking, gives us the ability to travel outside while traveling within. Plus, it expands our consciousness by bringing us more into intimate contact with the people and things around us. So travel becomes more than a slide show. It shapes who we are; it influences those we meet.

"Since that Tibetan adventure (detailed in my first book, Yak Butter Blues: A Tibetan Trek of Faith), I've continued these spiritual adventures, walking many of the world's major pilgrimage trails: the famed Camino de Santiago across Spain (twice), the Via de la Plata, the Via Francigena from England to Rome, and St. Olav's Way across Norway, and from Lhasa, Tibet, to Kathmandu.

"In 2006, I completed a 2,600-mile walk for peace through eleven countries and two continents from France to Jerusalem. This was an amazing odyssey and the subject of my book Along the Templar Trail. My writing has evolved over the years, but my primary influences remain Jack Kerouac, Kurt Vonnegut, Hermann Hesse, Henry David Thoreau, George Orwell, Carlos Castaneda, Ernest Hemingway, and Gandhi."