We did this last year (and next year!) and my wife had the final choice of what bike we used on the basis of how comfortable it was for her sat on the back for hours and hours. We did look at quite a few bikes (in dealers) that looked good on paper and were fine for the "driver" but had minimal pillion comfort built in. She vetoed the lot. On the basis of my past experience with uncomfortable (and eventually unhappy) pillion passengers I took this seriously.
In the end we went with a secondhand GoldWing as rear seats don't get much more pillion friendly than that and it worked fine (there wasn't a single complaint in 10k miles (NY-LA-NY)). OK, you might not want to struggle around the states on something heavy enough to leave grooves in the tarmac as you pass but my advice is not to dismiss pillion comfort and security as something secondary to looks, fuel economy, power, cost or whatever criteria you'd used for a solo bike.
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