Yes, I've taken multiple - anywhere from a couple months to an entire year during COVID. Travelling, trying my hand at a business, others to just take a break and work on side projects or freelancing before fully jumping back in.
It's good to consider the financial impact seriously in balance with everything else - not only the income you won't earn, but also how that would have compounded across your lifetime.
To address your point about recruiter emails, I still get them. So long as you can provide value to a business at the end of your break it's not necessarily an issue, though you might have to work harder to demonstrate that - I think especially for the soft skills you'd otherwise be using day-to-day in a workplace as opposed to when you're just doing your own thing.
I took a three year break that combined freelancing, some personal projects and a good bit of everything but devwork. Coming back into a full-time dev role was challenging for a couple reasons, but most pointedly all the effort required to rebuild the emotional muscles to negotiate the political/social situations. Took a good 6 months before it felt effortless again.
I am thankful for the opportunities and growth that my break enabled. At the same time, it has felt that getting back into work routines has been just as awkward as getting out of them.
Compounding is tricky to explain to young people because to see how it works with own eyes it takes years.
I don’t mourn money I misspent in my youth because experience was worth it but only now I see how much those would be worth in money terms. So I guess at least make adventure really worth it, because bumming on a couch watching streams for a year or even month is going to be a disaster.
It's good to consider the financial impact seriously in balance with everything else - not only the income you won't earn, but also how that would have compounded across your lifetime.
To address your point about recruiter emails, I still get them. So long as you can provide value to a business at the end of your break it's not necessarily an issue, though you might have to work harder to demonstrate that - I think especially for the soft skills you'd otherwise be using day-to-day in a workplace as opposed to when you're just doing your own thing.