I consider my Moto G 5G 2023 model which was $250 new at the time to be a perfectly good midrange phone. One nice aspect is it has a microsd slot, so it might be possible to store your photos on a card instead of in the internal flash. You then have to worry about copies somehow getting to the internal flash, but other than that, you can remove the card before returning home. You then have to transport the card somehow, but it's tiny and you can easily stash it without making it look like you're hiding it, or mail it home to yourself with reasonable chance of it not being intercepted and read, or maybe just run something that writes encrypted copy into internal flash, then throw away the card.