I have played guitar for over 20 years and I fully recommend guitar.
You can get a decent instrument for about $100. Don’t get one a Target or Best Buy for $100. Those are toys. Get one at a real music store. Yout probably have locally owned used instrument shops. Those are your best bet for finding a quality instrument for a very low price.
Because guitar is so popular, there is an unlimited amount of free learning materials online. You can find videos on YouTube to learn the basics like how to strum and how to press frets. Once you can make sounds come out and feel somewhat comfortable moving your fingers around on the fretboard, watch a YouTube video to learn to read tabs. It’s easy. You can learn in one day. You don’t need to read music. That’s a waste of time unless you want to play professionally. You can always learn that later if you decide to go down that path. Every song you have ever heard of has free tabs on the internet. ultimate-guitar.com even has many songs where you can press a play button and hear the tab. It makes learning very easy.