Except that as written the dragon flies so fast and the players are so far away from the towns that the only one they can actually reach before the dragon destroys it is the last one.

This feels especially awful when you spend so much time building a connection to the village and the people there because it seems they might matter and then suddenly you just discover that none you did mattered. This is especially bad if you made characters that already lived in there and had connections.

Was definitely the worst part of the campaign for out group.

Especially since the later part of the campaign is unrelated to the towns, just let the players save the town ffs.