Recommend a camera?

[grizzly7]

i would think you would have to exceed your budget if you went for a nikon dslr even second hand, but assuming you did, the vibration reduced 18-200 lens is a good do everything lens. not cheap tho i had one on a D50 which is now very out of date, but produced lovely stuff.
a different viewpoint with justin (case) being more in mind, would be one of the olympus tough series. 10 or now 12 million pixels in a water and therefore dust proof body, lens range is a little limited, battery life is good although it says it going flat days before it does. the charger is small and plugs into a shaver socket, a spare battery is tiny, buy olympus memory cards before you leave since these are the only ones that fit but not too pricey. i had one strapped to my mountainbike bars for a summer no probs. not as good quality as an slr for sure, but less chance of failure perhaps? newist version doesn't have a viewfinder though, how you're expected to frame anything on an lcd screen of any size in bright sunlight i really don't know!!