In 1909 he turned down the offer of a professorship at ETH and spent the next five years travelling in the United States, Hawaii and Japan, doing both manual and intellectual work.

[1] Returning to Switzerland at the outbreak of World War I, Cérésole donated his inheritance to the Swiss state and worked as an engineer.

It was at the second of these meetings that Cérésole, inspired by the words of a German delegate, offered to put together a team to carry out practical reconstruction work.

[2]: 6–7  Cérésole, together with English Quaker Hubert Parris, organised a workcamp in the French village of Esnes-en-Argonne, which had been badly damaged during the Battle of Verdun.

[2]: 9-10  In spite of its premature end, the project had been of benefit to both the volunteers and the villagers, and Cérésole's enthusiasm for workcamps was undiminished.

[1] In 1931, Cérésole met Mahatma Gandhi in Lausanne, who was staying in Romain Rolland's house in Geneva after having taken part in the Round Table Conferences in London.