Willibald was the eldest of three Anglo-Saxon siblings — with Walburga and Wynnebald — born in Wessex and destined together to play central roles in the Christianization of Bavaria. At twenty he left England for Rome, then took ship across the Mediterranean on what became the first recorded English pilgrimage to the Holy Land (723–729).
His Hodoeporicon — dictated in old age to the nun Hugeburc of Heidenheim, who took it down in Latin verse — is one of the most detailed early medieval travel accounts to survive, recording his journey through Sicily, Greece, the Aegean islands, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Syria, the Holy Land (where he stayed two and a half years), Egypt, and back through Constantinople. He was the first English pilgrim known by name to visit Jerusalem.
On returning west he was made a monk at Monte Cassino under Pope Gregory III, then sent to assist his uncle Boniface in Germany. Boniface ordained him priest in 740 and consecrated him in 741 as first bishop of Eichstätt, the new Bavarian see he was to govern for nearly fifty years. He died at over eighty at Eichstätt around 787.