>>1751087>I'm seeing different styles ranging from $40 to $400. What's the deal?Differences in construction and brand names.
If you'll be relying on your compass rather than just larp with it, you'll want one that will never get stuck. That effectively means a fluid-borne compass rather than a needle-borne one. If you want to be able to read it while on the move (in a car, plane or ship), you'll need a spherical compass rather than a disc type, but for hiking, disc types are good enough.
After that, everything is down to preference. Some compasses include looking glasses, lineals for your map, aiming optics, signalling mirrors and so on, others don't.
If you're actually doing map work, you'll do most work with the drawing tool compass, so you won't need any tools on the navigation compass, but if you're just searching for the direction you need to go in, they can be helpful.
Though honestly, rather than investing ~50 bucks in a good compass, I'd rather get a cheap solar panel for my phone and use the GPS. Navigating with compass and map is a pain and useless in forests, mountains and pretty much anywhere else that isn't the desert or the sea.
