[2] His most notable works are his films depicting Alpine landscapes and his mountain-climbing expeditions in Europe between 1913 and 1918, his explorations of Borneo in 1920, and his excursions to various sites in the United States and Canada in the early 1920s.

[6] Finally, after years of working for an array of newspapers, Burlingham in 1912 turned away from traditional print media and decided to study cinematography, to use the motion-picture camera to record his travels and to share his experiences with audiences in a far more visual, dynamic way.

[4][7] In addition to releasing Burlingham's films The Ascent of the Matterhorn and Descent into the Crater of Vesuvius, the British and Colonial Company between the latter half of 1913 and August 1914 distributed to English cinemas 21 much shorter travelogues shot by him.

Most of those short subjects, which averaged only about seven minutes in running time, consisted of tourist-style depictions of the countryside and resorts in southern France, Switzerland, and in the lake district of northern Italy.

He had traveled to the Alps and was familiar with members of the French and Swiss mountain-climbing communities, which included his future wife Léontine, whom he met in Paris and married in London in 1912.

The widening armed conflict, however, continued to restrict and disrupt European travel outside the neutral territory of Switzerland, so he launched return-expeditions to the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, the Jungfrau, and to other Alpine locations far removed from the war's effects.

After the United States entered the war in April 1917, Burlingham returned to New York City by July 1918 with his personal film library of over 30,000 feet of master negatives from his European travels.

After World War I and until his death, Burlingham continued to re-edit and release in the United States his past films like The Ascent of the Matterhorn, Mont Blanc, and Descent into the Crater of Vesuvius.

[15] Before and after his trip to Borneo, he also filmed excursions to various locales in the United States and Canada, to sites such as Niagara Falls and the Suwannee River that runs from southern Georgia into Florida.

[16][17] During his years living and traveling in Europe, Burlingham met many fellow Alpine climbers and hiking enthusiasts, including "a wealthy French widow", Madame Léontine Richard of Paris, whom he married in London in 1912.

[18] His body was transferred to Cincinnati, Ohio, where his younger brother Prentice lived and is the city identified by Frederick on his passport applications as his "permanent residence" in the United States.

The trade paper also shared an anecdote about how his relaxed, unconventional personality once cost him a newspaper job in Paris in 1912:We're going to miss Fred Burlingham...One of the unusual figures of the business.