In a word, yes.
- You make the change and figure out that you really do want to live differently.
- You make the change, decide it's not really all that great, and pick up a year later.
- You make the change, it does/doesn't work, but you can't go back to where you started.
That gives at least 2/3 odds of a good move. And I think you can weight the odds to even a better chance of a good outcome by understanding why this sabbatical is important.
Even if you essentially go back to where you were, you'll probably have a better understanding of what you want to accomplish, and will approach things differently than before the sabbatical.
In the cruising (sail or motor boat) world, and in the RV world, there are a host of people who've done just what you want to do. The people who "fail" at it are usually the people with unrealistic expectations. And IMHO they probably fail almost anywhere. Some people do their sabbatical with a young child or infant, recognizing that the sabbatical won't happen once school, etc. take over. Some folks effectively drop out. And then there are folks who've worked hard and now say "it's time for us!"
My wife and I are in the last group. We haven't totally "sold the house and gone cruising", but we have some great "sailing to the Bahamas" stories and we're accumulating some nifty VW Westphalia camper van stories. 
Mid-life crisis? I don't think so. It's just a recognition it's time for a change. 
Well-thought response. Thank you. It reminded me of Hectogliders' post in the "Far on Small" thread:
"Being " on the road " will change you. Short trips with homesickness and a quick return to the usual routine will not bring about the difference. It's the longer journey, where you have slashed away the tentacles of modern day living, to enter into an open ended freedom, that's when the change takes place. Your thinking changes.
After a while your thoughts are no longer connected to anything to do with home, work, and to a lesser extent , family. Your thinking becomes centered around the day to day necessities of living from the seat of your motorcycle.
In many ways its a state of real freedom, perhaps it's a variant of the freedom being sold when you see some motorcycle advertisements.
To be free, to wander with the contours of the land and the patterns of the weather. You meet other traveler's along the way, and they mostly all share this same state of mind, the almost dream like immersion into the journey, with its challenges , frustrations and amazing moments so rewarding that only those that have been on the road for a long time can know and acknowledge with a glazed over expression as far away places are described in detail.
Then one day you realize the road has changed you. The places you have been, the people you have met and the way others live so far away from your home that you have witnessed first hand, so ingrained and burnt into your memory permanently . You cannot be the person you were when you left home so long ago. You were there. You saw it. You can go home, but you cannot "go back" to who you were before the long ride.
You were on the road. Now the road is on you. "
Maybe you can't go back once you go, at least not totally. But that could be okay..
So where does one find Westphalia Camper stories?
