Following successful completion, at Frauenfeld, of his school career, Hürlimann went on to study History, German literature and Philosophy at Zürich, Leipzig and Berlin universities.
[2] In 1929, Hürlimann founded the newspaper "Atlantis", based in Berlin and specialising in international travel and related themes.
In 1930, he founded "Atlantis Verlag", a publishing house, taking over from Ernest Wasmuth publication of the "Orbis Terrarum" series of books.
His wife and co-publisher, Bettina Hurlimann, is the author of Three Centuries of Children's Books in Europe, published 1967.
In the 1930 English edition of his book Burma, Ceylon, Indo-China, Hürlimann wrote "My photographs were chiefly taken with a Sinclair Una camera, Zeiss lens, and Kodak films."