 In 1933 he moved to Ibiza and settled in the remote village of Sant Vicent de sa Cala in the north east of Ibiza.During this time he began writing for the Norwegian newspaper "Dagbladet".At the outbreak of the Second World War, Borthen went to London, England, later to Argentina, where he worked in the Norwegian embassy in Buenos Aires as press attaché from 1945 until 1950.