You're right that most new ham radio transceivers are much more expensive than CB radios because they're expected to operate on multiple bands, multiple modes and have very high performance receivers with features like digital noise reduction and variable filtering. However there are still options for cheaper equipment: older, used equipment can still be very good, and there are some compelling cheaper options from China (understandably might not be popular on this site!). You can even modify some CB radios to operate on the 10m band.