He then went to India, where he began his career as a journalist by taking charge of the Bombay Times in the absence of George Buist, and as an oriental traveller by a tour in Baluchistan.
Returning in 1860 to the east, he edited for three years the China Mail, accompanied the expedition to Tianjin after the Second Opium War, and visited Japan.
In 1860 he issued at Hong Kong a pamphlet entitled ‘England's Policy in China,’ in which he advocated the change of policy afterwards carried out by Sir Frederick William Adolphus Bruce, Robert Hart, and General Gordon.
He travelled in southern China, and sent descriptive contributions to the Daily News and Pall Mall Gazette on Asian questions, as well as to ‘Blackwood.’ At the beginning of the American Civil War he paid a visit to the United States, and afterwards passed some years in England, during which he wrote for papers and magazines.
In 1875 Wilson published travel writing under the title ‘The Abode of Snow: Observations on a Journey from Chinese Tibet to the Indian Caucasus through the Upper Valleys of the Himalaya.’ The book is based on articles in Blackwood's Magazine.