ok so ive been watching a ton of youtube videos about drones and now im more confused than when i started. everyone seems to have a different opinion and half the videos are clearly just sponsored so i dont really trust them. im not a kid or anything, im 34, just want something to fly around and maybe get some decent footage of hikes and stuff. budget is probably around 300-400 dollars but i could stretch it a bit if theres a really good reason to. do i need to register with the faa right away? and like is there a drone thats actually forgiving if you crash it because i will 100% crash it

honestly for that budget the mini 3 is the obvious answer but people sleep on the mini 2 SE if you just want to learn and dont care about the fancy obstacle avoidance stuff. the mini 2 SE is way cheaper and flies almost identical to the more expensive ones. you WILL crash and its not as painful when it was a cheaper drone lol. and yes register with the faa, its like 5 bucks and takes 10 minutes, dont skip it.

so i started basically the same way about two years ago and i went with the dji mini 2 at the time which is kinda discontinued now but still. the thing that nobody tells you is that the first few flights you're gonna be way too tense about it and overcorrect everything. i crashed mine into a tree on day 3. anyway the mini series in general is pretty crash tolerant for what it is, and dji's care refresh program is worth looking into if you're clumsy like me. for hiking footage specifically the mini 3 would be really solid, the vertical shooting mode is actually useful for trail content if you post to instagram or whatever