If you go and travel the world for a year, the most difficult thing by far is making the choice to go.  Every other obstacle is easily overcome.

It is a truly difficult thing to overcome the fears, and break away from the cultural norms so that you can go traveling. 

After that it's all easy.

Forget all of your fears.  Largely, they are just fear of the unknown.

* Is traveling the world dangerous?  Largely, it's safer than San Francisco.

* Will I ever find a job again?  If you take off for a year, I don't think it's such a problem.  Just sell it in business terms.  "I had a dream to travel the world.  I made a plan, organized the trip, and then acted upon it.  I had a fantastic time, the trip was an amazing success.  ...  but now that's _complete_ and I'm ready to get back to work."  I have to figure that it's in your favor if your interviewer wishes he was you.

* Am I cut out for this?  Just go for it.  Maybe traveling isn't for you.  Maybe you'll hate it.  But somehow I doubt it.  If you have a dream to travel, you must at least give it a shot.  In the very worst case you can just return home early.

But here is the big question.  Can you imagine that you'll regret it? 

Jump forwards 6 months:  You're sitting on a beach in Burma with new-found backpacker friends, laughing about the struggles of making the decision to go.  Really...  all you have to go is go online and buy a one-way ticket to Bangkok.  It doesn't take months of thought, debate, and planning.  It takes 5 minutes to process your credit cards and a couple of weeks to pack up your belonging. 

You laugh with your friends on the beach....  if only we'd known how easy it was, we all would have left much earlier.