A tech license (easiest to get) would get you HF (2-30Mhz) voice privileges from 28.3 to 28.5 Mhz in the 10 Meter band and all the Ham Vhf and Uhf bands.
10 meter band is good for local, approx 1-20 miles anytime, and when band is open, best in summer during the day can go to 1000’s of miles.
General Ham license, next step up, gives you voice privileges all over the HF band, at 160, 80, 40, 20, 17, 15, and 10 meter bands. You should also check out the various digital modes, (like texting over radio) FT8 is popular and extremely efficient. a QRP radio (5 watts or less transmitting power) can make contacts around the world easily once you learn which bands to use under which conditions. Range is affected by season,time of day and sunspot cycle.
I have a tech license, just never really exercised it. Appreciate your insight into bands vs license. I would start with the 10M and tech bands, but would like to consider hardware that would be expandable to the other bands at some point. Again, I dont know if SDR allows for a one stop solution or you need separate transceivers depending on the band.