As
Happy Feet said try the bike packing bags they are awesome and provided you aren't schlepping a ton of stuff you can still have a good time. I think that is a better overall option till you figure out your touring bike needs. I wouldn't spend time upgrading anything on that bike and just ride it into the ground and save your money for a better bike.
For the next one avoid Tourney/Altus and suspension forks unless you are going off road with big hits (which I wouldn't do on the current bike very often). If you do want more comfort look for a bike with wide tire clearances and run a nice wide tire which will give you the cush without the weight of a suspension fork. Find good reliable components which for Shimano road stuff would be 105 and up and for mountain Deore and up and put them on a nice steel frame which will again add comfort to the ride. Obviously you can get a prebuilt touring bike that has a lot of this stuff and will come a little cheaper but to truly get what you want building a bike from frame up is nice. If you are doing mostly road/gravel touring find a frame that is versatile and maybe a touch more than you might need at the time, your perspectives could change.
I can say when I bought my Co-Motion Cascadia I said I don't want to run any wide tires (32 was my max) and boy was I wrong, I also realized more recently that maybe instead of a drop bar for touring I might want to do an alt-bar like Koga Denham or Velo Orange Crazy or Surly Moloko (the two latter I have used, sadly no Koga dealers in the U.S.) but I am making it work. So there is a small part of me that wants to go with an Americano or Pangea and honestly I should have done that from the start but live and learn. I still could and then sell a bike or two like my parts hybrid and just convert the touring bike into the flat bar hybrid but no plans for that yet.