No country compared to France, in Clive Bell's estimation, but, in common with most of his peers, he also travelled widely in other European countries. Unlike most of those in the inner circle of Bloomsbury, he also visited the United States, giving lectures there in 1950 and 1952, and even once took a cruise to Africa. Early in his marriage, Bell went on holidays to Italy with both Vanessa and Virginia, trips that ended in tears and a sudden return home for Virginia after quarrelling with her brother-in-law. Wherever he was – Berlin, Venice, Rome or at sea – Bell sent letters home to Vanessa, Virginia, Mary Hutchinson and, later, Frances Partridge, with detailed accounts of his daily activities and highly opinionated descriptions of the local inhabitants.

My dear Lytton,

Such splashing and dashing, grunting and squealing, cursing, swearing, and complaining is labouring our large, cool room, as Vanessa washes Virginia's hair with icy water, that it will be a miracle if I can collect my thoughts and write a letter at all. I am coiled up too in the most comfortable position, and writing with a fountain pen almost spent. How we got here I scarcely know, but I am disposed to attribute our comparative success to my genius for organization and the extreme good temper and sense of my travelling companions. The second-class carriages were all full of evil-smelling Italian holiday-makers who were going either to a naval review at Spezia or a motor race at Bologna. Italy in autumn is doubtless the most beautiful country in the world, and would, I daresay, be almost perfect if it were ruled by some decent people like the English or French or even by the Germans. I suspect it was better when the Austrians were here; but the modern Italian with his nasty southern democracy and incompetent, practical, mind is a creature altogether odious. I find I can converse with him pretty freely. I walk on the heights of the Fortezza and contemplate the lovely Tuscan hills, thinking, not without a smile, of the Landseer-like crags in the Highlands, their blatant, obvious picturesqueness, and their absurd banalité.