Mini-Trips, Maxi-Experience

Before I went to China, I was somewhat hesitant about visiting such a huge country when I only had 2 weeks to travel. After returning, I have absolutely no hesitations about visiting any country, no matter how far away, for a two-week period. Granted, I missed out on tons of parts of the country - but still had an amazing experience, covered a lot of ground and felt like I learned a great deal about China. Furthermore, I hardly ever felt "rushed" in that I didn't have enough time in any one place...the trip seemed quite reasonably paced, overall. A lot of young people with aspirations for world travel seem to think that you can't really go anywhere for such a short amount of time - there is almost an implied level of legitimacy that a two-week trip doesn't reach and you need to quit your job and travel for 6 months to really make it "worth it". Well, since I don't see myself ever taking that much time off work in the forseeable future (or really, even wanting to), shorter trips are the only option I've got. And after spending two weeks in China, I can say that there's nothing wrong with them at all - although I didn't get to see absolutely everything I would have liked to have seen, even after a week I was saying that the trip was definitely "worth it". Besides, after a couple of weeks I'll admit that I was ready for western plumbing and some personal space. If I had the opportunity, I'd love to travel the world for 6 months. But I'm not prepared to give up my career and all that comes with it (like a salary and all of its accompanying pleasures) in order to do it. So I'm left with planning a trip for next year's spring break: Patagonia!