Yes. The usual best practice is to geotag after shooting rather than trying to keep the camera continuously connected.

The simplest workflow is:

1. Make sure your camera clock is accurate and synced to your phone or GPS device.
2. During the day, record a location track with either a smartphone GPS logging app or a handheld GPS logger.
3. Later, use photo-management or geotagging software to match each photo’s timestamp to the recorded track and write the coordinates into the image metadata.

For best accuracy, take one photo of the GPS device or phone showing the current time so you can verify any clock offset.

This avoids the hassle and battery drain of maintaining a live Wi‑Fi connection between camera and phone while shooting. Many photo apps and managers can do this timestamp-to-track matching, and some also let you manually add locations if needed.

So, if built-in GPS is unavailable, the most practical solution is: use a normal compact camera, log your route separately, and batch geotag the photos afterward.