Tourist in MSN

My tent, pair of sandals, quart sized pee bottle (empty when packed in pannier), and my air mattress are in my front right pannier. If I wanted to shift weight from the rear to front, I would likely have either a spare tire (some trips I carry one) or a bag of tools/spares that I would put in the bottom of a front pannier before anything else. The heaviest stuff goes in the bottom.

The tent goes in that pannier last, I shove it in like I am shoving something into a stuff sack. In other words, the tent is not rolled up, just shoved in. Tent pegs in a bag are placed on top so they are less likely to get misplaced. And if I am using a foot print, that is on top too. If I am using a tent with short poles (I cut some new poles last month that are shorter), the poles would also go in there too. In the past the tent poles were in a separate tent pole bag in the back. The tent bag that the tent is normally stored in stays home because I do not use it when shoving the tent into a pannier.

This might make me sound very organized, but I really am not. But, I want my tent in a place where it is easy to get off the bike so I can start setting it up before I do anything else in a campsite because it might be raining when I set up camp. Thus, the tent comes first.

I like my new tent (first photo), Big Agnes Scout Plus, but as you can see in the photo it is a real hassle to set up where I can't pound in stakes because it is not self supporting. In the photo, I had to jab twigs in between the planks to substitute for tent pegs, the wooden platform was really designed for self supporting tents. My tent was designed for backpacking and uses trekking poles instead of dedicated poles, so I cut my own poles instead.

Second photo, my older tent was much heavier, but it also fit in the front right pannier just fine.

There are some easy to make one pot type rice meals, you can add some veggies or a can of chicken or just about anything else to make a good one pot meal. Knorr makes some good rice dishes. But my favorite is pasta which you already mentioned. If you want to carry something to make a one pot meal a bit bigger and more filling, a brick of Ramen noodles will add more bulk and calories to any one pot meal.

ADDENDUM ADDED THE NEXT DAY:

Everything in the same pannier as the tent can get wet, so I do not worry about a wet tent getting other dry stuff wet. Although I want my air mattress to be dry, realistically it will not absorb more than a teaspoon of water if it gets wet so I do not worry about that. If my tools and spares are in that same pannier, they are in a plastic bag to keep the tools drier.