Cameron trained in London with his father and with the architect Isaac Ware. After Ware's death in 1766 Cameron settled on continuing his late master's work on a new edition of Lord Burlington's "Fabbriche Antiche", a project that required personal studies and surveys of ancient Roman architecture. He spent 1767 in London, preparing prints of works by Andrea Palladio, and arrived in Rome in 1768. There, he surveyed the Baths of Titus and Nero's Domus Aurea, digging into subterranean remains that were rediscovered only in the 20th century. According to Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Cameron met in Rome with another Charles Cameron, a Jacobite and a true member of the Lochiel clan, (likely Dr Archibald's son) and "borrowed" the life story of the latter to embellish his own. Cameron returned from Italy around 1769 and published the results of his studies in 1772 (reissues 1774, 1775) under the title "The Baths of the Romans explained and illustrated..." with proper scientific commentaries in English and French.