Mobile hotspot is my only way?

I want to have a portable device that me and others could connect to over WiFi for internet connection.

One way of doing this is by using a seperate phone with hotspot enabled. The problem is that this solution has a lot of flaws:

  1. I have to sacrifice my phone to use it as a hotspot and this use case would degrade battery pretty fast.
  2. I can’t share my VPN connection to others in this way.

So is mobile hotspot my only way? If yes, I would like to get some suggestions on which one to buy.

Ideally, this solution should have a battery so I could just carry it around in the pocket or in the backpack and charge it with my powerbank if needed.

Duplicate of Any recommendations on portable routers? - #3 by ph00lt0