Biography

Brandon Wilson Knight Hospitaller/Knight of Malta

AUTHOR, explorer, PEACE Pilgrim

Lowell Thomas Gold Award-Winner for Best Travel Book,  Society of American Travel Writers Foundation

  As an author/photographer and explorer, I’ve hiked over 12,000-kilometres in search of meaning and enlightenment. It began innocently enough.

While traveling the length of Africa with my new wife, Cheryl, we discovered the beauty of slow-travel, or “traveling outside while traveling within.” What a difference that made.

On our return, we soon organised an 1100-km indy trek across Tibet with our horse. Our struggles and that of our oppressed Tibetan hosts are captured in my book Yak Butter Blues

Afterwards, I was drawn to the world’s great pilgrimage trails, as portals to consciousness. In 2006, a friend and I pioneered the 4223-km trail of the First Crusades from France to Jerusalem, naming it the Templar Trail. That sojourn inspired my book Along the Templar Trail

Still seeking challenges, in 2009, Cheryl and I became the first American couple to thru-hike the 1800-km Via Alpina across eight countries from Trieste, Italy to Monte Carlo, which led to writing my book Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking X the Alps.

These walkabouts continue to be my passion; my “trampoline for the mind.” I hope my stories inspire you, too.

 PILGRIMAGE/PEACE WALKS

• First American couple to trek a non-supported 1,100-km pilgrimage path from Lhasa, Tibet to Kathmandu (1992)
• 564-km Explorers Club Flag Expedition on St. Olav’s Way across Sweden and Norway (2014)
• 500-km Camino Aragonés & Camino Catalan, Spain (2012)
• Rome Cathedrals Pilgrimage Circuit; Mt. San Angelo (2010)
• 800-km Via de la Plata, Seville to Santiago, Spain (2007)
• Founded the Templar Trail, a 4223-km pilgrim route for peace through 11 countries from France to Jerusalem (2006)
• 200-km Israel National Trail from Haifa to Jerusalem (2006)
• 800-km Camino de Santiago (Francés), Spain (2005)
• 643-km St. Olav’s Way, Oslo to Trondheim, Norway (2004)
• 1850-km Via Francigena from England to Rome, one of first to complete this route, per AIVF (2002, 2000)
• 800-km Camino de Santiago (Francés), Spain (1999)
• Croagh Patrick, Ireland (1985)

 TRAVEL ADVENTURES & MORE

• Trekked Tour de Mt Blanc, France, Italy, Switzerland (2018)
• Trekked the Alta Via One across Italian Dolomites (2016)
• Part of first American couple to thru-trek the 1800-km Via Alpina, 8 countries from Trieste, Italy to Monte Carlo (2009)
• Trekked Brixen, Südtirol to Prague, CZ (2001)
• Trekked to Mount Everest Base Camp, Tibet (1992)
• Trekked High Tatras, Slovakia
• Climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
• Climbed Mt. Nyiragongo Volcano, Dem, Rep. of the Congo
• Climbed Mt. Goldeck, Austria
• Climbed Mt. Valora, Italy
• Climbed Mt. Democrat, Colorado
• Climbed Mt. Zeus, Greece
• Climbed Mt. Olympus, Greece
• Climbed Mt. Miyajima, Japan
• Climbed Te Rua Manga, Rarotonga
• Traveled overland by Bluebird bus, Venezuela to Mexico
• Independently traveled West Indies, Montserrat to Trinidad
• African transect, across 17 countries, London to Cape Town
• Shot Zambezi River Class V Rapids, Vic Falls, Zimbabwe
• Traveled “gun-run” through Mozambique civil war, 1990 
• Tracked and photographed mountain gorillas in DRC (Zaire)
• Chronicled Eastern Europe in 1989 as the Berlin Wall fell
• Backpacked around the world from Pacific to Asia to Europe
• Lived a year in N. America’s northernmost Inupiaq village
• Organized expeditions to investigate Sasquatch sightings
• Circumnavigated North America on a 27,300-km roadtrip

 PUBLISHED WORKS

• The Pilgrimage Chronicles: Embracing the Quest (anthology, “Metamorphosis of a Pilgrim” essay, photos, and provided the Introduction)
• The Walkabout Chronicles: Epic Journeys by Foot (anthology, Tibet and Alpine travel essays and photos)
• Over the Top & Back Again: Hiking X the Alps (book)               – Book of the Year Bronze Award, ForeWord Reviews
• Along the Templar Trail: Seven Million Steps for Peace (book)
  • – Lowell Thomas Gold Award, Best Travel Book
  • – Book of the Year Bronze Award, ForeWord Review
• Auf Dem Templerweg: Sieben Millionen Schritte für den Frieden (book, German edition)
• Dead Men Don’t Leave Tips: Adventures X Africa (book)
• Yak Butter Blues: A Tibetan Trek of Faith (book)                        – Independent Publisher IPPY Award (travel essay)
• Yak Butter Blues: Una Caminata de Fe por el Tibet (book, Spanish edition)
• A Tibetan Trek of Faith (book, South Asia edition, Heritage Publishers, Delhi, India)
• Poetry of the Nepalese Mountain Porters (book intro)
• They Lived to Tell the Tale: True Stories of Adventure from the Legendary Explorers Club (Lyons Press/Globe Pequot, anthology, essay “Life When Hell Freezes Over”)
• Naïve & Abroad: Spain, Limping 600 Miles Through History by Marcus Wilder (book, provided fifty photos with essay about hiking the Via de la Plata)
• Voices for Africa (anthology, poem “Give Me My Pen”)
• Wounds of War (anthology, essay “Thoughts Along Life’s Trail: War and the Environment Within”)
• Hip Poetry (anthology, essay)
• Iubilantes Annuario (anthologies), Como, Italy

HONORS

• The Explorers Club International Fellow
• Founder of the Templar Trail, a modern pilgrimage trail along the route of First Crusades from France to Jerusalem
• Knight of Grace, Sovereign Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem-Knights of Malta, 2014, Sweden
• First American to receive St. Olav’s Cross, SHOSJ
• Graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill 
• Attended American Academy of Dramatic Arts (NYC)
• Eagle Scout with palms; member of Order of the Arrow
• Peace and human rights activist
• Wall of Tolerance, SPLC, founding member 

• Amnesty International Leadership Group

• Member, International Travel Writers Alliance
• Selected for “Contemporary Authors”
• University of Pittsburgh Poetry Award
• National Geographic Traveler Photo Awards (2 Years)
• Islands Magazine Photo Award