Empirical evidence of the number of friends who went to Asia for mid to long term and then came back within 2 years because it didn't work out. And the incident where I had to help a friend pay his airfare because he was literally stuck.
Failure rate seemed higher than success rate.
2 years??? Imo that sounds pretty successful to me. But seriously, the issues you've highlighed are likely to come down to the individual who decided to spend all money without leaving enough for emergencies.
Getting to do this for 6 months would be amazing.
Imo. Rewards for this far, far outweigh everything else.
not really sure where your source is on this -- I lived abroad for five years and met many, many people doing this same thing (especially in Bucharest) -- both in I.T. and in other fields -- it's very do-able, as the author describes -- and as you suggest, it helps if you don't have family