You don't need to be especially sophisticated to enjoy some basic advantages of DSLRs - eg aperture priority (you tell the camera what aperture size you want, it works out exposure time and ISO) is an easy first step. (This controls, essentially, what bits are in focus for your shot.) Plus it's a feature few phones offer, or indeed can do much with, as they have such a tiny aperture (5mm of glass to let light in, say).

Increasingly I'm happy enough with a phone (giggle pixel 1 which has a halfway decent camera + software support) for walkabout use, but the benefits of a small DSLRs for holidays or other special events is hard to beat.