In 1988, Mayer proved the remarkable fact that ∞ is an explosion point for the set E( f a ) of endpoints of the Julia set of f a : C → C; e z + a with a < −1; that is, the set E( f a ) is totally separated (in particular, it does not have any non-trivial connected subsets), but E( f a )∪{∞} is connected. Answering a question of Schleicher, we extend this result to the setẼ( f a ) of escaping endpoints in the sense of Schleicher and Zimmer, for any parameter a ∈ C for which the singular value a belongs to an attracting or parabolic basin, has a finite orbit, or escapes to infinity under iteration (as well as many other classes of parameters). Furthermore, we extend one direction of the theorem to much greater generality, by proving that the setẼ( f ) ∪ {∞} is connected for any transcendental entire function f of finite order with bounded singular set. We also discuss corresponding results for all endpoints in the case of exponential maps; to do so, we establish a version of Thurston's no wandering triangles theorem for exponential maps.