I honestly thought that I would be bored and craving work at this point. But it turns out that I have enough open source ideas that 3 months can fly by with pleasure, and I extended my sabbatical for another few months.

I also have neighbors who I'm friends with, which helps tremendously. And I get to go to all the nice places in SF during the daytime, when it's not crowded.

I agree it's good to take a break from your job, but for me that meant working on stuff I've wanted to work on for YEARS.

I don't think you'll ever get sick of 8 hours of sleep :) That really helps the brain, and mental health. (Although I always got of 8 hours of sleep, even while working)

Honestly, most of your friends and family are probably all working and busy with their own stuff. You can hang out with them a little more, but it's not like you'll ever go from hanging out once a week to hanging out every day. And at least to me, travelling is boring if you don't know anyone there, or have any larger purpose. It feels like I'm constantly getting ripped off too.

Travelling feels like consumption; programming feels like creation. Consumption is only fun in the moment, IMO. The difficulty of creation provides some of the ups and downs that you need for an interesting mental life.

And exercising is harder on vacation for me... I end up getting antsy and uncomfortable because I'm not biking every day.

But yeah I think it is good to spend some time semi-retired and see if you can bear it!