As a teenager, he was in the elite when he traveled by commercial aircraft from Miami, Florida, US to Havana, Cuba, in 1921, and then to Egypt when Tutankhamun's tomb was opened in 1923.
At age 23, he traveled 25,000 miles (from London to Tokyo in 18 months) on a twin-cylinder Douglas H32 Mastif motorcycle to study architecture around the world.
[4][5] Upon his return, he detailed his adventures in a book, One Man Caravan, telling of almost being shot at in the Khyber Pass by Pathan (Pashtun) tribesmen, avoiding Iraqi bandits, spending a night in a Turkish jail, and being a guest of Indian rajahs.
In 1983, he produced, edited, and released, with his filmmaking sons, a 90-minute film compiled from his home movies, The One Man Caravan of Robert E. Fulton Jr. An Autofilmography.
He then formed a company to manufacture aeronautical equipment, Continental Inc.[5] He married for the first time in 1935, to Florence (Sally) Coburn (1912–1995) of Greenwich, Connecticut, with whom he had three sons — Robert E., III (1939-2002), Travis (1943– ) of Snowmass, Colorado, and Rawn (1946– ) of Bernardston, Massachusetts.