You're definitely right about the competitive advantage thing. You want to create a silly blanket rule? Fine - I'll be happy to interview the guy who's a rockstar engineer but decided to travel Asia for 6 months.
We're talking about unemployed, not somebody who has the money to burn on traveling to Asia for 6 months.
Still unemployed! But we are talking edge cases here.
No.
http://www.bls.gov/cps/faq.htm#Ques5
"Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work."
This is the definition used for assembling official statistics. It is unlikely that this is used by companies setting hiring rules.
Well now, that's anyone who currently has no employment, and is applying for a particular job ("actively looked for work"), isn't it?
To be honest, traveling some parts of Asia isn't exactly expensive. Only when you get into Korea, Japan, HK. Most of the other places in Asia are pretty cheap, especially if you're backpacking.