I think it's far less invasive to setup a Linux VM that can be thrown away vs. setting up dual booting.
With Hyper-V or Virtualbox the OP can have a Linux distribution installed and booting very quickly without fear of disrupting his current Windows installation.
It's definitely possible to convert in both directions. I've never done it though. The technical hurdles made it unpalatable. My main method of moving back and forth was to keep my personal data on a separate disk from the OS disk. That way I could always take my data with me when I changed OSes or VMs.