A three-night China tour will kick off in July with a 5 a.m. wake-up call. Travelers will take in a solar eclipse (astronomer provided) on Mount Emei, followed by visits to a Giant Buddha statue, an embroidery workshop, an opera (performer interviews included) and meetings with families, students and baby pandas. Seventy-two hours later, it will be time to head home.

Whirlwind Tours, Secretly On Its Way

Tour operator Remote Lands, whose shortest China tours used to be five or six days, is one of many vacation companies putting its trips on fast-forward. This year, travelers can book a one-night Caribbean spring break trip, or a two-day African safari. Hotels and resorts are throwing out the minimum-stay requirements that used to widen their profit margins, and admitting guests who only want to stay a night or two.

The shorter trips are designed to woo customers who otherwise might not be booking at all, or people worried about spending time away from the office. Many tour operators are reporting bookings down 20% or more. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates 2009 U.S. hotel occupancy will fall to 56.5% -- the lowest in more than 20 years. Americans have also been shrinking their vacations for decades -- to 3.3 nights on average, the U.S. Travel Association says.

Whirlwind tours can involve a little whiplash. This year, Sunny Land Tours, which specializes in Central American travel, began advertising four-day trips to Costa Rica, alongside its typical eight- or nine-day itineraries, after getting more requests for shorter custom trips there.

1 night in Guilin. Amazing tour to accknowledgerice culture in China. Trip includes Dragon Back Rice Terrace, also hot spring for good relaxation. Price $113 per person.

2 nights in Shanghai, including famous sites like The Bund, Oriental Pearl TV Tower, etc. Price $562 per person.

3 nights in Xi'an. Great chance to see ancient Chinese culture. Price $444 per person.

4 nights in Lhasa. Trip includes main Tibetan Buddhist temples, plus Barkhor and Norbulingka Park. Price 1,126 per person.

Less Time, No Less Enjoyment

This Saturday, tobacco-company executive Andre Benoit and his wife will take a morning flight on Air Canada from their home in Toronto to Bogota, Colombia, then take a small plane to Quito, Ecuador, arriving at 11 p.m. The following morning, they hop another small plane to get to the Galapagos Islands, where they'll spend 3 and half days touring black lava and white sand beaches and looking at blue-footed boobies, sea lions and other wildlife. They'll spend a day and a half in Quito on the way home, then take a red-eye back to Toronto the following Saturday.

Mr. Benoit says he planned the trip just a couple of weeks ago for his wife's 50th birthday. "We both work, and this was the only time possible," he says. He chose a Maryland-based tour operator called Blue Parallel because its Web site emphasizes quick trips. The company's motto: "We take individuals who are short on time, and high on life.

For safaris, the trick is to shrink the trip, but still send travelers home satisfied that they've seen a lot of animals. Ina Steinhilber, sales and marketing manager of Thomson Safaris, a 28-year-old Tanzania tour operator, has gotten so many requests this year for short safaris that her company has sharply increased its short tours, offering custom itineraries of as short as two days, instead of the usual nine. Instead of traveling to multiple camps around Tanzania, travelers focus on one specific area, like a 10-mile-wide collapsed volcano that has hyenas, elephants and wildebeest, but no giraffes as in some other areas.