The Canon Txi kit from Costco is a pretty good deal. I got the t2i kit for around 850 when it was on sale, it seems to come on sale pretty often.
Comes with a carrying case, 18-55 and 55-250mm lenses, memory card, etc.
But with DSLR's, they arent "convenient" to carry around. But i'll assume you already understand that aspect.
The Canon Rebel series (T2i, t3i, t4i, etc) are all "Crop sensor" cameras. which means they are already zoomed in 1.6x basically. So an 18mm lens at 18mm is really 18mm x 1.6% = 29mm or so.
You can find some pretty good deals on slickdeals on kits with these cameras. Or look refurb or at craigslist. It seems a lot of people use this as their beginner step in to DSLR, and then later want to go more "pro" and upgrade to a full frame/full pro camera (ie. Canon MKii or Mkiii).
As for editing software, Lightroom is really good, simple, and runs fairly cheap (compared to photoshop). But Picasa was pretty decent for basic edits, I used it for a bit.