Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
staging post
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ The city of Mondovi was a main staging post on the road to Genoa.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Certainly Snaith Priory was a staging post for pilgrims travelling from Lincoln to York, as recorded on the altar kneelers.
▪ Not much of any importance until it became a staging post on the London to Brighton turnpike in the eighteenth.
▪ Remember that Earth is just a staging post along the way.
▪ The new charters were to be a staging post.
▪ They are the vital staging post for millions of birds migrating between Siberia and Australasia.
▪ This was, I kept telling myself, just a staging post.