Quality C&V touring bikes tend to command a premium. Vintage MTBs, on the other hand, tend to be fairly inexpensive. But then you have to deal with either a flat bar set up (that may or may not be a downside for you) or a drop bar conversion. You end up with a stout touring bike in either case.
This is my drop bar Specialized stumpjumper that I set up for touring. It can take 26 x 2.0 tires and fenders and it has lots of gearing for pretty much any terrain. I'm running it with 3 x 8 gearing and indexed bar ends:
