The longest trip Chaplin ever made was after completing City Lights, when he left New York on February 13 1931 and returned to Los Angeles on June 16 1932. Having spent just over a year in Europe, for the most part in the South of France and the UK, he then departed for the Middle East and Japan, taking brother Sydney with him. The brothers were particularly taken with Bali, and Chaplin later wrote draft scripts for a film to be set on the island (his first talkie…).
During his long time off from film-making Chaplin visited beautiful places and met amazing people, which he then recounted in fascinating detail in A Comedian Sees the World, a series of articles for the US magazine A Woman’s Home Companion published between September 1933 and January 1934.
He returned to the Far East with Paulette Goddard and her mother Alta in 1936, and then remained in the USA until his final departure from there with his family in September 1952.
From their home in Switzerland, Charlie and Oona Chaplin travelled a lot – most often to France, Italy, and of course England, Scotland and Ireland, but they also holidayed with their children in Kenya, Morocco, and the Far East. They also stayed in Bermuda, where Oona was born, before returning one last time to the United States in April 1972, after so many years of exile.
