Which video camera for your travels?(recommendations please)

hi. in January im gonna set off to Costa Rica, and would like to record parts of my trip.

can anyone recommend a good digital video camera suitable for travelling?

budget of about £150-£200. has to be small and compact ideally. ive looked on amazon etc and theres just so much choice i dont know where to start!

thanks for any help...
Simon.

I guess it depends on what kind of quality video you are planning to output later on. If you're not considering anything too fancy (like just uploading to the web), have you considered something like the new ipod nano's? Cheap and of course you can listen to music while you're at it Alternatively, the Flip Mino HD looks like a travellers' best friend!

[ Edit: Edited on 06-Oct-2009, at 01:49 by Sam I Am ]

Quality is key. You can try the Aiptek flip units

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0019BPTMI

But it's only mediocre video quality.

Personally I bought a DSLR camera with 1080P video capabilities, but the focus feature leaves something the be desired...

thanks for the replys.

basically i will make a video on windows movie maker when i get back to show my friends. so something that'll still look good on a tv screen. around the £200 mark..

There are 100's, if not 1000's of s/h camcorders out there. Just about every format is available.. Digi, cassette (still excellent), Hi8, Super8 and so much more. If it's your first ever one and you want something more than just an i-camera, then try and find one in a s/h shop that has some sort of 17/14 etc. day money back guarantee. Try them all and pick the one you like the most. I have 2 Sony Handycams. One cassette and one digital. The digicam has better quality playback, but the cassettecam is much easier to use and the picture quality is still very good. Both can be picked up s/h for under €100 each and together when I bought them new, they cost me over €1000 not so long ago.