So, conferences and sabbaticals are really different. The answer to your question depends on what you mean by "if you already happy". I think at some level you

So, conferences and sabbaticals are really different. The answer to your question depends on what you mean by "if you already happy". I think at some level you could apply it to anything ("if you are already happy why do anything different?"). In talking to colleagues, the murmuring is that conferences might be changing. I think the lockdowns really reinforced for a lot of people they didn't like going to conferences in person and feel like much of it could be done online instead. I think a legitimate argument could be made that conferences are often like paying money to add something to your CV... which leads itself to a broader discussion of academic incentives. I do think there are a lot of people who like the socializing aspect of it though. It's not so much the talks as much as it is the professional informal discussions after the talks, or at dinner, or when people skip the talks and start talking about ideas. I think there's a lot of that that could happen online or something, but not all of it. There's also a lot of people who still operate in person, and just don't "do" online stuff, and so if you want to interact with them, it's best to go. Whether or not conferences in their common form is the best way to do that I'm not sure, but there's something to be said for it as a professional in-person social gathering. As another poster noted, sometimes it's just fun to travel someplace too. Sabbaticals are really breaks from non-research activities to have free time for research. If you don't feel you need it, I guess you don't, but why wouldn't you take less responsibilities temporarily for the same salary? The one big downside to sabbaticals is that they're sometime attached to some noncompete provision, like "if you take a sabbatical you won't leave the institution for X years, and if you do, you pay back your sabbatical pay during that time." So if you're unsure if you want to stay, you might want to avoid that. But then again, that would suggest you're unhappy so it wouldn't apply to your scenario.