Another vote for the Baofeng UV-5R. 8-10 miles might be a bit of a stretch, although I did reach my wife (in the house) one night on a family channel at over 14 km. That was through thick bush, stock antenna, no mods. If you can get some elevation change that helps. Pretty good for a little 4W handheld.
It's all the stuff in the way that kills you. Helped set up a HAM repeater years ago on the Charlottes, up on a "mountain" by Port Clements (IIRC, I mostly pointed at stuff and looked around). We were able to hit Prince Rupert from there which ended up being about 135 miles line of sight on 5W.
The nice thing about the little Baofeng is that there are very programmable, and you can set them up to work with all sorts of other radios. Getting your amateur license opens you up to using them on 2m as well. They can be set up as a repeater, if you are on the same piece of land all the time.
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