What type of work do you do? As UCGal mentioned, a lot of it depends on your current work/financial situation. I took probably 6 months off due to work burn out (after 10 years straight non-stop) and as everyone else has said, it’s totally worth it. One thing that’s obvious is that this is much, much easier if you are single, have a ton of savings, no kids, low expenses, etc…
The problem is that in this lifetime, there are very few windows of opportunities for this type of stuff and you’ll probably never get another chance until much much later in life if you’re currently in the single, no kids, have some money after working a bit camp. (That’s assuming you don’t have kids now and plan to have them later).
I know I won’t be doing this again for the next 20 years unless I hit Lotto!
In tech, getting back to work maybe a bit tougher and all employers will question the gap, especially for folks who “decided to just take a year off”. Even though they may want to do it themselves, they maybe hesitant to hire someone who actually does it and can afford to do it (they don’t need the job that badly). Jobs and the economy is still bad so it’s riskier now.
I have a friend who’s been off for a year+ now after some dot.com riches and might not go back to the grind.