As a long time accumulator of film cameras, most of which I still own, the one piece of advice I would give is that if one wants a reliable camera choose one that can be readily repaired and serviced and factor in such a cost to one's purchase. Considering this one should also choose a camera which is worth the cost of the repair or service. Even models with a rock solid reputation can need treatment.
Having said this, a number of my cameras are of the cheaper variety and certainly not economically worth such expense. To date my Fujica ST601n, Chinon CE4, Yashica FX3 and Pentax P30n have been 100% reliable. Cheaper models can be a lot of fun at little expense (the big, ugly, noisy lump that is the SFXn always puts a smile on my face when I use it and it cost me about £25) and I am contemplating a sally into Canon EOS territory for just such a reason . I would not risk taking any of these on a holiday though. For that I take one from my available following:-
Pentax MX,
Nikon FA
Nikon FM2n
Fujica ST801n
Canon FT QL
Originally posted by womble Battery is two standard LR44s. The finder is a thing of beauty. Downsides (to some) are (a) lack of mirror lock-up (although there is the "flick the shutter button" trick), (b) the "traffic light LED system for measuring exposure and (c) a stiff shutter speed dial. None of these things have ever bothered me, I've had four (one stolen, one given away, two in use). None have had problems with the shutter curtain. Apart from the one which was stolen a long time ago, I sent all three for a CLA although the only thing that they desperately needed was the foam replacing. My standard travel set-up is my LX for colour film and my MX for BW.
I have had three MX cameras, two of which I still own. Only the first one, which I regretfully sold on, had the very stiff shutter speed dial. I did not find it to be a big deal. The other two, whilst not as loose as that on my Nikon FM2n, are perfectly fine. One of my existing MX's has a sticky mirror, which two trips to different service centres has failed to rectify. The mirror sticks mostly when the camera is cold and at slower than 1/30th sec. I have a Spotmatic which exhibits exactly the same problem. Despite this somewhat sketchy record from the MX model in my personal experience, it is still one of my favourite cameras, and should the heretofore reliable one in my stable develop a fault, I would certainly want to get it either fixed or acquire a replacement.