Based on your questions I would recommend the VM route. For that you don't need any physical devices. You need to check if your hardware supports virtualization first.

Look up WSL2. You may have to enable it first, but it comes with Windows. It will be slower than running Linux on a dual boot, as you're running Windows along with the virtual OS. Maybe faster than on a USB.

Like another commenter said, look into Ventoy. You install it on a USB stick, and then you can just copy over ISOs of different distros to try out and choose which one to run at boot time. AFAIK all Linux distros have a Live option to run the OS off a USB without installing it to your hard drive.

You should make a ventoy USB and install a few different distros on it so you can try them out and choose one you like the feeling of.

Then you use the live image to shrink your Windows partition, install your chosen distro on the remaining space, and Bob's your uncle