In 1922 the need to explore new horizons prevailed over her recurring tendency to home sickness, as Elisabeth Rupp went to Argentina for a year. She worked as a home-tutor for a prosperous German family there. There was time for reading and thinking and for close observation: she became very critical of the upper-class social mores she came across in the expatriate community, especially with respect to the subordination of women. She traveled to and from Argentina on the luxury passenger steamer , and although she was obliged to travel third-class, she was able to interact with first-class passengers such as, most importantly, the naval officer Jan Gerdts. They married. According to one source the necessary formalities were concluded on the ship before they arrived back in Hamburg, the principal German port for intercontinental shipping. If anyone had thought that marriage would be followed by a life of conventional domesticity they would have been disappointed. Johannes "Jan" Gerdts' work on transatlantic passenger liners meant that he was frequently away from home for weeks on end. The marriage did, however, provide Elisabeth Gerdts-Rupp with improved opportunities for international travel. The couple remained together till Jan Gerdts committed suicide while in command of SS Cap Arcona (by this time, her engines barely working, in use as a prison ship) shortly before the end of the Second World War.