If this languishing¹ economy has left you pressed for time and short of money, you might consider stretching that relaxing getaway into bite-sized breaks.

如果萎靡不振的经济形势让你没钱又没闲，你或许可以考虑一下把超长假期拆成可以轻松消化的短假。

A file photo of Hawaii. If this languishing economy has left you pressed for time and short of money, you might consider stretching that relaxing getaway into bite-sized breaks.

Experts say mini-vacations, brief holidays of four days or less, offer today's traveler a restorative（滋补的） pause without the pressure or expense of a long journey.

"The mini-vacation is a fantastic way of changing the scene without breaking the bank," said Amelie Hurst of travel website TripAdvisor.

"The trip you spend 12 months planning and pouring all your budget into has to live up to（不辜负，实践） a dream," she explained. "With a mini-vacation travelers can find themselves more ready to go with the flow."

In a recent Trip Advisor² poll of almost 1,700 Americans, 22 percent said they opted³（选择） to take shorter vacations of two-to-four days due to finances and six percent said it was due to vacation time.

Peter Yesawich, CEO of Ypartnership, which tracks travel trends, said the weekend getaway（起步，逃走） has reigned⁴ as the most popular American leisure trip for over a decade.

Last year, with the economy still stuck in the doldrums（萧条时期，无精打采） , it accounted for almost half of all U.S. vacations.

"To Americans a vacation is a birthright（与生俱来的权利） ," said Yesawich. "It doesn't matter how low the Dow goes, how high the unemployment, the majority Americans are still taking vacations."

Yesawich said work habits reinvented vacation habits in the prosperous（繁荣的，兴旺的） 1980s and 1990s, when employment rates were rising, along with the number of two-income households.

"Work habits began to constrain⁵（驱使，强迫） vacation habits," he said. "We became more beholden to work and that drove vacation around weekends."

Yesawich said the Internet accelerated the trend and the latest economic downturn sealed it.

"Prior to 1996 there was a sanctity（圣洁，尊严） to Saturday, but that has disappeared in this 24/7 environment," he said.

Genevieve Brown, of Travelocity, said autumn is traditionally a popular season for mini-vacations because the kids are back in school and families have less time.

"People are still committed to taking vacations, but they're watching travel dollars closely," Brown said. "Shorter vacations make sense."