I think in TCP mode, the big pain point is that packet loss on one wrapped session is lethal to your whole connection (i.e., all streams stop if just one stream stops).
In UDP mode, I think you lose only 70-ish bytes per packet, which isn't too bad.
(Another win that you get is roaming: if your local IP keeps changing, perhaps because your bus's cell modem keeps dropping out, then you don't lose your SSH sessions.)
Another win that you get is roaming: if your local IP keeps changing, perhaps because your bus's cell modem keeps dropping out, then you don't lose your SSH sessions
As a random aside, mosh (http://mosh.mit.edu/) is incredibly good at IP mobility. One of my favorite examples: I circumnavigated the globe in November of 2012, and used the same mosh session in San Francisco, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Bangkok, and Istanbul. :-) mosh also provides predictive local echo, which has made working over high-latency links so much more pleasant.
Completely agreed. Unfortunately, this requires preparation in advance.
Thankfully, this was just for a short bus ride - I actually changed it back immediately after loading the Drive homepage.
How much overhead does OpenVPN add? I've used it a bit on reasonably fast networks, but I'm curious if it would be too slow to use here.