If you work for startups taking time off is not hard at all! Startups fail all the time and it is an ideal time to take 6 months off. There is a bit of a stigma to taking too much time off between jobs, but if you can show that you actually built something during that time, it isn't hard to overcome. I even took off 8 months after I quit a job to write free software. I simply showed prospective companies the code I wrote during that time.

The main thing is to save money while you are working! It gives you freedom.