With the Nikon 610, you may want to buy the Nikon 28-300 and leave everything else home. It is a solid performer and will generally give you images nicer than a point and shoot. Otherwise, I would set a price and look at Panasonic, Canon, and Sony (and the new Nikon P1000 if it is available before you fly). Head over to DpReview and read over their recommended cameras. I took phenomenal Machu Picchu shots with a plain vanilla $300 P&S Canon 7 yrs ago. I was shocked at the great quality of my pictures. It has only gotten better. We were doing humanitarian work in small towns and simply couldn’t risk traveling with anything of value. I was sad about leaving my Nikon 300S at home, but got great shots anyway. Have fun. What a great trip.

I suspect most of the technical terms and jargon used in our responses in this thread is way over the OP's head at this point. I looked at her 14 previous posts and she is a complete newbie coming from a point and shoot. I'm guessing the concept of DoF while familiar to all of us is just a completely foreign concept to her. I believe our responses need to be shorter and jargon free to help her understand the reasons for the results she's getting, and why they may be appropriate . She should also post an image or two. I've found that some newbies, and not so newbie, are averse to background blur 100% of the time and expect the whole image to be in sharp focus.