I agree that with dependants you need to be a little bit more careful. At the very least you need a bit more safety buffer in terms of savings. But yeah, as you say, dependants are not necessarily an impediment. I mean, my parents abandoned their home country when I was a child and it worked out well enough for all of us :-)

PS: it sounds like we could have crossed paths with your son since we were traveling in 2018/19 too!