You could do worse than the Windsor Touring. Three of us rode them coast to coast together in 2007 and two of the three have done other long tours on them. They worked out pretty well. We did swap out the cranks for lower gearing, but other than that they were pretty much stock.

I would buy the Novara Randonee before I would consider the Safari for the kind of trip you propose.

I still have the stock saddles on both of the bikes I have toured on. The bike I plan to do my next tour on has a new saddle, but only because the guy I bought it from wanted to keep the saddle.