This sounds awesome. I wish I would have done it. Life is to be lived as an adventure. Once you start working, you will be focused on building your career and your money stash and will think anything of this nature would be a big risk (until you wisen up, of course).
Although if you are in debt, then it's not a good idea. Maybe it's good to save up some money while working in college so you can do this. A year long gap between college and work may be more explainable to an interviewer than taking a bunch of gaps throughout your career. Although I am in favor of those gaps, unfortunately interviewers at companies might not understand.
In hindsight, I've realized I've always tried to push back my work start date whenever I got a new job to try to get in as much down time as possible. Unfortunately, this has only happened three times (new job) and the second time my request for an additional month between jobs was seriously discouraged.
I wish I would have read the 4-Hour Workweek when I was younger coming out of college. Wait...it hadn't been written yet. :( He advocates the mini-retirements along the way.
What does OE stand for, Australians? I've heard of a walkabout, but couldn't find anything online about an Australian OE.