manual focus is the way I do it no problem then

A monopod is the answer, cheap even lightweight carbon ones easy to carry and you can use them where tripods are banned

Fabulous place lovely people food great, but no aurora when we visited some super waterfalls if you get a chance, and worth looking at where the American and European shelves meet

Agreed, spend the cash on lenses and if you are keen go full format not cropped as you are liable to end up with a full format sensor camera and then all your cropped format only lenses will be redundant, I know I made that mistake and it is costly.
Also consider lenses hold there value!

Great lens Papy butt its a short telephoto on a cropped sensor

Nikon 17-55mm F2.8, cracking lens sharp and you get the focal lengths you need just watch the flash has a wide enough spread to light large groups at the wide angle end