BRANDON WILSON is the Lowell Thomas award-winning author of a series of travel adventure books, a photographer, explorer and travel writer whose stories have appeared in international anthologies, magazines and newspapers, and across the Internet. A voracious explorer of over 100 countries, he’s particularly passionate about inspiring others with the possibility of discovery through long distance trekking. Born in western Pennsylvania, he developed wanderlust at an early age, and has spent much of his life traveling. His fascination with what he calls “slow, deliberate travel” began when he and his wife Cheryl became the first western couple to trek a Buddhist trail 650-miles across the Himalayan Plains from Lhasa, Tibet to Kathmandu in 1992. The peripatetic writer has now thru-hiked ten of the world’s great long-distance trails, including the Camino de Santiago three times and Via de la Plata across Spain, as well as St. Olav’s Way across Scandinavia twice He was the first American to hike the 1150-mile Via Francigena from England to Rome, and in 2006, he and a friend re-blazed the 2600-mile route of the First Crusades from France to Jerusalem on a walk for peace, founding it as the Templar Trail. Their adventure was chronicled in Along the Templar Trail, the 2009 Lowell Thomas Gold Award-winner for Best Travel Book (Society of American Travel Writers Foundation) and a ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Finalist (adventure/recreation). Other books in his travel adventure series include the latest, Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking X the Alps (2010), a 2010 Finalist for Book of the Year Award (travel essay), ForeWord Reviews,  Dead Men Don’t Leave Tips: Adventures X Africa (2005); and Yak Butter Blues (2004, 2nd edition 2005), his debut book, which won an IPPY Award. A Spanish edition was published in 2010. All books available in hardcover and paperback; also available from Amazon Kindle. He provided the introduction, photos and the essay "Metamorphosis of a Pilgrim" in the anthology The Pilgrimage Chronicles-Embracing the Quest. His Tibetan and Alpine travel essays and photos are featured in The Walkabout Chronicles-Epic Journeys by Foot, an anthology with tales from many of the world's foremost explorers, adventurers and trekkers. Life When Hell Freezes Over, his story about his year of purgatory spent living in the Arctic, appeared in They Lived to Tell the Tale: True Stories of Adventure from the Legendary Explorers Club (The Lyons Press/Globe Pequot, 2007). He was also honored to write the introduction to On a Donkey’s Back, a collection of poetry and paintings by and about the lives of Nepalese porters, (Yileen Press, 2008). His photos have won awards from National Geographic Traveler and Islands magazines. His 50-page photo essay on Spain’s Via de la Plata was featured in Naïve & Abroad: Spain, Limping 600 Miles Through History by Marcus Wilder (2008).   He's a Fellow of the prestigious Explorers Club and a Knight of Grace in the Sovereign Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta. Graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill.                              Wilson has been interviewed as an adventure travel expert by worldwide media, including:  • The Joey Reynolds Show, WOR (New York) • Talk Radio with Michael Dixon, WGN (Chicago) • MSNBC Travel with Christopher Elliott • “Get Serious! with Tina Vindum” (San Francisco) • Pittsburgh Post-Gazette • Honolulu Star-Bulletin • ORF-TV (Austria) • Nice Matin (France) • CNS Rome (Italy) • Gudbrandsdølen Gagningen (Norway) • Balkan Bulgarian Television, Sofia (Bulgaria) • Glas Public Voice, Belgrade (Serbia) • Alanya TV Nightly News (Turkey)

Published Works:
•The Pilgrimage Chronicles: Embracing the Quest (essay and introduction with photos in an anthology featuring the world pilgrims)
• The Walkabout Chronicles: Epic Journeys by Foot (essays and photos in an anthology featuring the world's foremost explorers, adventurers and trekkers), 2016
• Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking X the Alps (2010, Pilgrim's Tales)
• Along the Templar Trail: Seven Million Steps for Peace (2008, Pilgrim's Tales)
• Yak Butter Blues: A Tibetan Trek of Faith (2004, second edition Nov. 2005, Pilgrim's Tales)
• Dead Men Don't Leave Tips: Adventures X Africa (Nov. 2005, Pilgrim's Tales)
• Essay, "Life When Hell Freezes Over", (part of the anthology) They Lived to Tell the Tale: True Stories of Modern Adventure from the Legendary Explorers Club (2007, The Lyons Press/The Globe Pequot)
• Essay, "Thoughts from Along Life’s Trail: War and the Environment Within" (part of the anthology) Wounds of War: Poets for Peace (2006).
• Introduction to "On a Donkey's Back" (a book of poetry and paintings by and for the porters of Nepal), Yilleen Press, 2008
• Photo essay with fifty-photos from the Via de la Plata featured in Naïve & Abroad: Spain, Limping 600 Miles Through History by Marcus Wilder, (book, 2008)

Awards:

• Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking X the Alps, 2010 ForeWord Reviews Bronze Award (travel essay)
• Along the Templar Trail: Seven Million Steps for Peace, Lowell Thomas Gold Award for 2009 Best Travel Book, Society of American Travel Writers Foundation
• Along the Templar Trail, shortlisted for 2008 Book of the Year Award, ForeWord Reviews
• Yak Butter Blues is an IPPY (Independent Publisher) Award-winner
• Wilson's photographs have won awards from National Geographic Traveler and Islands magazines.