After recovering from his injuries, Höhnel became an officer on board the corvette SMS Donau, and traveled in 1897 to the Mediterranean and along the coast of West Africa south to Cameroon, then across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, and to New York and Newport, Rhode Island. During the trip, the ship's captain suffered a heart attack and Höhnel was made provisional commandant until June 1898. Also on this voyage he met the future US president Theodore Roosevelt, who was then in his words the 'much feared' police commissioner of New York. After this, Höhnel was assigned as officer of the deck to the central battery ship , whose executive officer was Commander Anton Haus, the future commander of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.