Counter-point to many here (although they are very valid positions)…

Lots of people find the views from telescopes underwhelming and frustrating, especially on the cheaper end. Cheap bird optics and mounts on Newtonians and learning to collimate properly is a hassle. Dobsonians are pretty approachable but are a huge hassle at the sizes they tend to come in. Moderate SCTs are decent but at a pretty steep entry level price for a curious hobbyist.

There’s no replacing the feeling of raw photons hitting your retina, but it’s easy and cheap to get a camera sensor and capture far more detail than your retinas ever could.

Dwarflabs and Seestar have options for a few hundred bucks, they are extremely portable, they do require an app, but they’re dead simple to use to start exploring within 10 minutes of unboxing. You’ll get images you’ll want to share with friends, and with a little practice you can have print-ready deep sky nebulas. The telescope that’s easy to use is the one that gets used, and these are nearly unbeatable for helping keep the interest and motivation going.

Find a local astronomy club, look at their telescopes and enjoy the view, but it won’t be close to what you see on the web.