PAIA - Maui author-adventurer Brandon Wilson's "Along the Templar Trail: Seven Million Steps for Peace" has won the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition award for best travel book.

The awards were recently announced at the annual convention of the Society of American Travel Writers in Guadalajara, Mexico.

It was selected from a field of 1,191 entries judged by faculty at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

"Along the Templar Trail" chronicles Wilson's 2,600-mile peace walk from France to Jerusalem, following in the footsteps of the first Knights Templar a millennium ago.

This is the author's third nonfiction travel adventure book, following "Yak Butter Blues" and "Dead Men Don't Leave Tips: Adventures X Africa."

Published by Pilgrim's Tales in Paia, "Along the Templar Trail" is available at all booksellers and Internet bookstores.

For more information, visit www.pilgrimstales.com.