I dont know about your market, and what is available so i will try and ask some more questions and offer suggestions on what i’d consider taking hiking and travelling.

Does it need to go underwater/ withstand severe weather ?

how will you charge it if your hiking, does it need to take AA batteries so you can get power just about anywhere ? some cameras only charge from mains power.

If i was going well off the beaten track for several months, i’d take my AA battery camera. Compared to all the others, this is the only thing it has going for it. It has a 36-360mm lens (in 35mm equivalent) which means it can a little bit of landscape work, and the zoom can go close in to capture some birds. It can take around 10 megapixel shots, which will be good for an A4 sized print, maybe an A3 sized print. its also around 250grams and can easily fit in a jacket pocket.

If i knew i was going to get super wet or wanted to get some underwater shots, there’s my Tough camera. it was designed to go underwater. It has a 25-200mm lens (in 35mm equivalent) which goes wider than the AA camera but doesnt zoom in as much. Its also got some smarts and can take 3 shots in ‘landscape’ mode and stitch them together to make a panorama. (some image quality is lost, so i would also take 3 shots manually for a higher resolution post production stitch) It does give me a 12megapixel image (and capture RAW images which can help a little bit in post production). This one has a proprietary battery, but can be charged up by USB. This one also has optional external lenses that can be used to go a bit wider or zoom in a bit more.

If i wanted something compact and portable, id take my compact camera. It was designed to be a ‘jack of all trades’ and has a 28-300mm(35mm) lens. It can shoot 12megapixels and RAW. It fits in a jacket pocket too, but doesnt have any weather sealing. I might use it when its slightly raining, but not for long. It also can have external lenses attached, and ive only used it rarely. I would only take it if i knew id be taking photos of birds.

But if i wanted the best quality, id take my micro 4/3rds camera. This one needs separate lenses. If i wanted to pack light, id get the 12-100mm (24-200mm in 35mm equiv). This camera and body combination is weather sealed and if i could only go for one lens on a round the world trip, this is the one id take. If i could pack more, id consider the 7-14mm too, which lets me get shots about 90 degrees apart from the left to right side. This has all the bells and whistles, and i could make some fairly large prints off it, it normally takes around 20megapixel shots, but can take several shots and merge them into one 80megapixel shot if its on a tripod and nothing in the shot is moving.

I deliberately havent put in camera specifics as what i think is good and works well for me mightn’t feel the same to you. If you really want, i can mention camera models, but i dont want them to be taken as go by camera 1, when camera A might be more what you want.