I have been amazed for years now how the stitching software does such a good job, not to mention the quality of cell phone cameras for a number of years also.
I was working in photography for a good long while when digital started coming out, and always recall how it was early on. That said, I still really like holding an actual camera shaped thing, more or less, and having an actual shutter button felt under my finger that can be actuated by feel only, not to mention the ergonomics of a camera vs an easily droppable slip out of your hand cell phone.

so back in the day, this is what I did for having fun with looking and shooting the world with stitching results in mind. For larfs, my 93 Pyrenees trip was one where I did a fair amount of it, and still have the 5x7 and 8x10 prints stuck together with tape for all the stitchings that I did. I did all my own processing and printing so was able to more or less match up densities properly, and if things weren't perfect density wise and matchup mistakes wise in the shots, I didn't care, it was just cool to me as the final results were much closer to my memories of riding through the Pyrenees and it was a fun challenge looking at situations and landscapes and thinking stitching wise...
Here is a landscape example and a people situation example. I shot photojournalism style stuff all the time anyway so was used to the people thing, but hardly ever shot landscapes.
I took a borrowed Zeiss point and shoot with a good 35mm fixed lens and a pile of self loaded 400 asa film. Simple and no stress shooting, nor worries about a nice camera or weight.