The best travel camera in 2024: compact and portable cameras to take anywhere (2024)

The best travel cameras have to do one crucial thing: be better than your phone. After all, your phone is almost certainly going to be in your pocket anyway –and it's almost certainly got a great camera.

That means the best travel cameras need to combine compactness with image quality, advanced features with simple operation, and ideally the ability to get your files onto your phone, tablet or laptop quickly, to share your holiday photos and vacation videos. Having a camera that's safe to take on the beach, in the snow or even in the sea could be another key consideration!

Even though the best camera phones can produce great images, you just don't get the same quality as you would if shooting with one of the best point-and-shoots or best mirrorless cameras. Smartphones are restricted by smaller sensors offering lower still and video quality, reduced low light performance and minimal control over depth of field (for those blurry backgrounds).

The type of camera you pick comes down to personal preference and budget. To help you decide which is best, we've split the guide into two sections. First, we'll look at mirrorless cameras that offer better image quality and more versatility than compact systems but at the cost of increased size and weight.

Secondly, we'll look at compact cameras that are pretty much pocket-sized, perfect for keeping on you at all times, won't weigh you down, and are really simple to use – although they have smaller sensors and fixed lenses.

Best travel camera: Our top picks

The best travel camera in 2024

Best mirrorless travel cameras

Mirrorless cameras might be a little heavier and larger than compacts, but they deliver better quality (through larger sensors) and the option to change your lenses. The best lenses for travel give you the ability to capture ultra-wide-angle photos of famous landmarks and also zoom in on the beautiful details in the distance. You'll also find that they perform better in low light.

Best overall

When picking the best travel camera, we're focusing on portability, and the dinky but mighty Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV is one of the best portable cameras around. Not only does it have an incredibly lightweight body, with tactile dial-led controls, but it also uses the smaller-but-still-powerful Micro Four Thirds sensor.

While this has some slight disadvantages in terms of low-light capabilities, it effectively doubles the focal length of any lens mounted to the camera; so a 50mm will behave like a 100mm. And the best Olympus lenses include positively tiny lenses that go a long way for travel photography, helping you keep your kit and weight size down. We haven't even talked about everything else that's great about the E-M10 Mark IV: its snappy burst shooting, its accurate autofocus, and its impressive 4K video. It's a terrific all-around camera.

Read our full Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark IV review.

Best for most people

The Fujifilm X-S10 is one of the best all-around APS-C camera you can buy right now. It's got a fully-articulated screen and generally handles very well, despite having fewer external control dials and buttons compared to the Fujifilm X-T4 and Fujifilm X-T30 II. Having in-body stabilization is also a huge bonus, making it easier to shoot handheld with slower shutter speeds – which is hugely useful for low-light work and using longer lenses.

As with all Fujifilm X bodies, the JPG are stunning straight out of camera and it features a variety of different film simulation modes if you want to add a little something to your pictures. In terms of APS-C cameras, we're hard-pressed to think of one that offers a better balance of features, performance, and price than the Fujifilm X-S10, and that's why it's one of our top picks.

Read our full Fujifilm X-S10 review.

Best for vintage styling

If how your camera looks is really important to you, you can't go wrong with the Nikon Z fc. It comes in a choice of vibrant colors including mint green, coral pink, and dark orange so, no matter what your preference is, there will be one you love.

When this camera was first released, it was so popular that Nikon struggled to keep up with demand. And no wonder; this compact camera isn't just a beauty on the outside, as its 20.9MP APS-C (DX) sensor delivers super high-quality images that you can transfer on the go thanks to built-in Bluetooth and WiFi.

One of the biggest downsides to the Z fc is the lack of native DX lenses available, however. Nikon and other third-party brands are slowly bringing out more, but you might need to use much heftier full-frame glass to tide you over until then.

Read our full Nikon Z fc review.

Best budget

Travelers don't just shoot stills any more! For many of us video is just as important as still images, if not more so, and it's these vloggers and content creators that the Lumix G100 is aimed at. It makes it easy to capture high-quality video and stills with its approachable button layout.

But even if you are uninterested in the technicalities of capturing great-looking videos, you will be able to get still images with this camera. There’s an inherent risk of dumbing things down too much when creating a camera for social media creatives, but Panasonic has avoided that pitfall with the Lumix G100.

This is a great camera to start with if you're just as interested in vlogging as you are in regular photography. It's also a super-small, super-cute camera with a wide range of Micro Four Thirds lenses available –though its autofocus uses Panasonic's cruder contrast-detect technology, which is notorious for "pulsing" and "hunting" during video.

Read our full Panasonic Lumix G100 review.

Best for vloggers

The Sony ZV-E10 is one of the cheapest vlogging cameras yet, and combined with its slim dimensions this makes it a perfect choice for travelers who want to shoot a little video. It comes with sophisticated built-in mics and a clip-on windshield for noise reduction, making it much easier to get clean audio on your vlogs even outdoors, and the 4K UHD video it produces is of excellent quality.

As we've come to expect from Sony, the autofocus is best in class, whether shooting video or stills. And a point worth mentioning is that, while the ZV-E10 may be optimized for vlogging, it's still a capable stills camera with 11fps burst shooting in the tank, so don't worry about restricting yourself with it. The ZV-E10 makes for an excellent traveler's camera.

Read our full Sony ZV-E10 review.

Best waterproof camera

Following the aquisition of Olympus's camera divistion, the OM System TG-7 is essentially an update to the much-loved Olympus Tough TG-6. It might have relatively conservative 12MP resolution, but it makes up for this by packing a sensor that's back-side illuminated. This means that a) there are less pixels, but each one is larger to capture more light, and b) the sensor design is more efficient at gathering light in challenging conditions.

This is important because the TG-7 is a camera that can take pictures and video underwater –where there is obviously less ambient light. It can also take pictures and video in the dust, sand, snow, and heat –and it's drop-proof, crush-proof and freeze-proof. No more having to baby your camera, or not take it with you to the places where you're going to get the best photos!

Even if you're not going to be hiking, climbing, swimming or otherwise putting your camera in danger, the Tough can capture RAW photos and capture 4K video, and has brilliant built-in macro and microscope modes for ultra close-up shooting.And since it's near indestructible, it's one of the best cameras for kids, too!

Read our full OM System Tough TG-7 review.

Best for reach

The Panasonic TZ200 / ZS200 benefits from a larger 1-inch sensor and it also has a 15x zoom, which zooms all the way to 360mm on a full-frame sensor. You can shoot in JPG if you want to use the images straight out of the camera or RAW if you prefer to edit your images first. For those who love documenting holidays through video, it can shoot in 4K and it also has a 4K Photo Mode that can extract 8MP still images from a burst sequence.

If you're looking for versatility, portability, and advanced features without the fuss of interchangeable lenses, look no further.

Read our full Panasonic Lumix TZ200 / ZS200 review.

Best action camera

For most adventurer-creators, the Osmo Action 4 is the perfect balance of quality and price. Stabilized 4K video looks great and the camera can take a lot – not just rough and tumble but temperature extremes and it's waterproof to 16m without a case. Best of all, it has a larger image sensor than any other camera on the list, so it is better in lower light, making it more flexible.

DJI did have an interesting experiment with modular design, now seemingly abandoned, with the Action 2, but they do retain powerful magnetic mounts which can even partially survive the heat of an oven (we tried accidentally – see our full review).

Like the more famous competition, DJI has high-quality horizon balancing and image stabilization, which has improved on the Action 3. The resolution limit is 4K, but in practice, this is the ideal resolution for action (and the limit of almost all TVs). More useful is the 120fps capability (or 240fps at 1080P).

The fact that Action 4’s isn’t interwoven with subscription software is one we wholeheartedly appreciate, too, but GoPro seem to finally growing out of this.

Read our full DJI Osmo Action 4 review for more depth.

Best 360 action camera

There are times when handling even an action camera's wide-angle lens becomes a problem, and that's where a 360-degree action camera can step in. With two back-to-back lenses and enough smarts to eliminate a selfie stick from the footage, this almost magic camera can capture an image from a point within reach looking any direction you see fit.

I tried it with the bike attachment – which holds the camera a little way in front of the bike, over the front wheel – and was amazed at the footage which makes it look like I'm cycling toward a perfectly controlled drone. Better still, by syncing with my phone I could draw GPS data and have it overlaid, in the form of a speedometer, by the Insta360 app before sharing.

The only real worry is how naked those glass lenses are when the camera is in use; the joy of re-positioning the camera angle after the fact can be hours of fun. 5.7K is good enough for sharing, but more resolution would help pro work.

Read our full Insta 360 X3 review for more details

How to choose the right travel camera

These are five key things to look out for when choosing the right travel camera for your needs.

1) Image quality: Ask yourself how you will use any photos or videos you capture. If you only plan to share content online on social media then any of the above cameras will be suitable. If you plan to print your pictures, though, then mirrorless cameras with larger sensors and higher megapixel counts will produce better-quality results.

2) Focal range: What kind of range do you need for your traveling activities? Compact cameras can have impressive zoom ranges, but to achieve their tiny size they often lack quality compared to mirrorless cameras. For mirrorless cameras, what lenses are available? So-called standard zooms are a great option for all types of travel, but they can also be large and heavy. A wide-angle lens might be best for capturing cities and landscapes, or if you are going to see wildlife or a sporting event then a compact telephoto lens might be best.

3) Size and weight: If you're going on vacation then the last thing you want to take is a heavy kit – especially given things like baggage restrictions when traveling. With that in mind, both your camera and lens(es) need to be small and light. If you want something that can fit in your pocket, get a compact camera – but if you don't mind taking a bag, a mirrorless system with one or two lenses could be more versatile.

4) Simplicity: Don't want to get bogged down with camera settings? Most modern cameras have a range of auto modes – especially compact cameras, which take away the stress. Advanced modes and complicated controls don't usually mix with spur-of-the-moment snaps, so decide what is important to you and pick your camera based on that.

5) Price: The cameras in our list have a range of prices, and we try to include cameras that suit every budget. The price of a camera usually reflects its capabilities, although all the options listed here will take great images and video – so try to strike the right balance between what you need in a camera and what you can afford.

How we test travel cameras

Want to find out how we test and review DSLR and mirrorless cameras? We trial cameras both in real-world shooting scenarios and in carefully controlled lab conditions. Our lab tests will generally measure resolution, dynamic range, and signal-to-noise ratio, which gives us a benchmark by which to compare cameras.

Resolution is measured using ISO resolution charts, dynamic range is measured using DxO Analyzer test equipment and DxO Analyzer is also used for noise analysis across the camera's ISO range. Our compact camera evaluations are based on real-world testing alone.

For our real-world testing, our reviewers spend time with each camera, testing it in a variety of shooting situations and providing their qualitative thoughts on how the camera was to use and evaluating the images and video it produced. Here's an example of how we literally take a camera on vacation to evaluate it!

How we choose the best travel cameras

When we are reviewing cameras, we carefully think about what scenarios each camera could be used for. When considering which cameras would make ideal travel cameras, we judge each camera on how small and lightweight it is for easy packing and transport, as well as carrying for long periods of the day while out exploring.

We also consider the technical capabilities of each camera, and how suitable they are specifically for travel photography scenarios from beach vacations to safaris, to city breaks. Finally, we consider the price of the cameras to select options that cover a range of budgets and requirements.

We use our real-world experience with each camera and our in-depth camera knowledge to determine a final selection of top cameras that we would recommend as the ideal camera traveling companions.

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