Shorter Trips Mean Fewer Missed Connections

I recently took a couple of bus trips. Both had delays for different reasons. 

The first had a five hour delay which was miserable and I was concerned we might be stuck there a lot longer. I have a serious medical condition and I get motion sick and don't eat much while traveling, which is a hardship, and the delay meant I fasted for 24 hours or more, which wasn't the plan.

Nonetheless, while I was stressing about "I have a hotel reservation!" and "I've had nothing to eat all day!" other people were screaming at staff about suing, talking about calling a lawyer, desperately trying to find a free outlet to charge their phone and desperately trying to change their tickets because they were on track to miss their connection. 

We were nervous that this was going to turn into a riot or something. In spite of serious medical conditions and having not eaten, we were the most zen people in the waiting room.

One missed connection means the entire rest of the trip is not happening. From what I was overhearing, it's not necessarily as simple as telling the bus line "It's your fault I'm missing my connection. Change my tickets."

There may not be another connection at that station in a timely fashion. Or the next bus may already be full.

They did get the issue resolved. They did get me to my final destination. 

I had chosen a stop with a hotel 0.2 miles from the bus station and a 24 hour restaurant nearby that delivered at night. We got there at something like 2am and ordered food delivered and recuperated for a few days.

This ended up being far more of a hell ride than I wanted it to be, but years ago I made a 24-hour train trip and was bleeding from the rectum when I arrived because my body simply doesn't work right. Compared to that, this was a vast improvement.

I know travel is hard on me. It's always hard on me and I'm older than I used to be.

A lot of travelers were talking nonstop about their trip being 20 hours or 45 hours, sometimes with children in tow or with serious medical conditions of their own.

If budget is an issue, it may take extra arranging to split a twenty hour trip into two trips with an overnight hotel stay in the middle, but medical care in the US is extremely expensive and that hotel stay may save you a ton of money in medical expenses, plus pain and suffering.

The train and bus lines are designed for planning a trip straight through, even if it's more than 30 hours of travel. I've taken trips that were more than 30 hours of travel.

Their interface doesn't provide for "Start in city A, stop overnight in city B, go to city C the next day." You will need to do your own research to figure out how to split it up and what's a good stopping point in the middle.

But you can do that. You don't have to accept the default assumption that you will just get on a bus and travel straight through to your final destination no matter how long the trip or how awful the experience. You aren't actually their prisoner.

And if it becomes common for passengers to travel that way, perhaps transit lines or third party websites will create an interface that let's you pick a starting point, an end point, a stopover in the middle and book a hotel stay all at the same time.