History Main / CasualInterstellarTravel

* In one episode of ''LightNovel/DirtyPair'', Kei and Yuri decide to stop off on a planet, on [[RaceAgainstTheClock their way to a dinner date]] on another planet, because they have a ''nice shopping mall'' there. Another depicts commercial interstellar space travel as more or less resembling modern airlines.

* ''Webcomic/{{Starslip}}'' subverts it with the 'Starslip Drive', which abuses [[AlternateDimension alternate dimensions]]. As the original title (Starslip ''Crisis'') suggests, it isn't without consequences.

** ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' depicts travel between various points in the Andromeda Galaxy as taking mere hours, and even SpacePirates are capable of traveling all the way to Earth (though the trip is still implied to be rather inconvenient). The sequel establishes that the two limiting factors are that such travel is dependent on a PortalNetwork rather than being able to go anywhere, and that going into hyperspace is physically taxing on living organisms, so there's an upper limit to how many jumps you can take in one go before you have to spend some time in normal space recuperating.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Humans are the only creatures in the world of ''Literature/TheQuintessentialMarySue'' who ''[[PunyEarthlings don't]]'' have the ability to do this. The [[ProudScholarRace Philosphites]] have a warp-drive that lets them [[SmallUniverseAfterAll travel the whole length and breadth of the universe]], the [[ProudWarriorRace Amazinines]] are {{Flying Brick}}s that rival the Silver-Age Comicbook/{{Superman}} in power and can just ''fly'' anywhere in the universe at billions of times lightspeed, and the [[MageSpecies People of the Gem]] can exceed even those by [[TeleportationWithDrawbacks teleporting with a magic spell]].

* ''Fanfic/NoStarsInSight'': Being a former galactic empire, [[VideoGame/{{Destiny}} the Cabal]] naturally have starships capable of advanced FasterThanLightTravel. It only takes a single day for the ''Rancis Olytus'', a typical Imperial Cabal frigate, to warp from a star system described as being not far from our solar system to the Kepler-186 system hundreds of light years away.

* ''Fanfic/NoStarsInSight'': Being a former galactic empire, [[VideoGame/{{Destiny}} the Cabal]] naturally have starships capable of advanced FasterThanLightTravel. It only takes a single day for the ''Rancis Olytus'', a typical Imperial Cabal frigate, to warp from a star system described as being "not far from Sol" to the Kepler-186 system hundreds of light years away.

* Humans are the only creatures in the world of ''Literature/TheQuintessentialMarySue'' who ''[[PunyEarthlings don't]]'' have the ability to do this. The [[ProudScholarRace Philosphites]] have a warp-drive that lets them [[SmallUniverseAfterAll travel the whole length and breadth of the universe]], the [[ProudWarriorRace Amazinines]] are {{Flying Brick}}s that rival the Silver-Age Comicbook/{{Superman}} in power and can just ''fly'' anywhere in the universe at billions of times lightspeed, and the [[MageSpecies People of the Gem]] can exceed even those by [[TeleportersAndTransporters teleporting with a magic spell]].

* Humans are the only creatures in the world of ''Literature/TheQuintessentialMarySue'' who ''[[PunyEarthlings don't]]'' have the ability to do this. The [[ProudScholarRace Philosphites]] have a warp-drive that lets them [[SmallUniverseAfterAll travel the whole length and breadth of the universe]], the [[ProudWarriorRace Amazinines]] are {{Flying Brick}}s that rival the Silver-Age Comicbook/{{Superman}} in power and can just ''fly'' anywhere in the universe at billions of times lightspeed, and the [[WitchSpecies People of the Gem]] can exceed even those by [[TeleportersAndTransporters teleporting with a magic spell]].

* Humans are the only creatures in the world of ''Literature/TheQuintessentialMarySue'' who ''[[PunyEarthlings don't]]'' have the ability to do this. The [[ProudScholarRace Philosphites]] have a warp-drive that lets them [[SmallUniverseAfterAll travel the whole length and breadth of the universe]], the [[ProudWarriorRace Amazinines]] a {{Flying Brick}}s that rival the Silver-Age Comicbook/{{Superman}} in power and can just ''fly'' anywhere in the universe at billions of times lightspeed, and the [[WitchSpecies People of the Gem]] can exceed even those by [[TeleportersAndTransporters teleporting with a magic spell]].

->''"If you know how warp drive actually works, stop wasting time writing science fiction and get thee to a patent attorney as fast as possible so you can begin to enjoy your reign as the Bill Gates of faster-than-light travel."''
-->-- '''Phillip Athans and Creator/RASalvatore''', ''Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction''

** From the same author: In what is likely the most extreme example of this trope, the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Kiint]] from the [[Literature/NightsDawn Night's Dawn Trilogy]] have [[spoiler: the capability to teleport instantly [[UpToEleven across multiple]] ''galaxies'' at a moment's notice]]. In the same trilogy, regular space travel is available and people own private starships, but it's still difficult enough that it couldn't be used to effectively reduce the population pressure on Earth.

* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Rifts}} Three Galaxies'' {{Sourcebook}}s, interstellar travel is not only a breeze, but [[UpToEleven intergalactic travel]] as well. This is partially justified in that the eponymous galaxies are [[SciFiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale unusually close to each other]]. In the main setting, [[AvertedTrope there is no interstellar travel at all]]. And unless you live on one of the pre-Rifts orbital stations, even interplanetary travel is out of the question.

* In ''Literature/ChakonaSpace'', we have a situation much like what we see with ''Franchise/StarTrek'' seen below. Governments, big corporations, and the seriously wealthy (as well as the occasional SpacePirate) can all potentially own ships capable of sailing between distant worlds many lightyears apart in a matter of days or weeks.

* If ''Anime/MacrossFrontier'' is any indication, the colony fleets of ''Anime/{{Macross}}'' are a rather unconventional example. [[FasterThanLightTravel FTL travel]] via Space Folding is possible, but has large energy requirements and is unpredictable. Travel between stars however, is casual, and quite comfortable actually, since ''Frontier'' takes place on what is essentially a fleet of ''island-sized'' domeships containing huge sprawling metropolises, small oceans, green fields forests and farmland [[RecycledINSPACE In SPACE!]] It's actually likely that the Frontier's citizens have a higher standard of living than the people of Earth, since the planet itself is recovering from a space war.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Asian Animation]]
* ''Animation/HappyHeroes'': Planet Xing has a train system that travels through space to other planets, but makes it to destinations as fast as a normal train ride would, with how far planets are from each other not being considered.
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[[folder:Film -- Animated]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

* ''{{Franchise/Extrapower}}'': Space travel is casual enough for characters based on Earth or on distant alien planets to be good friends who sometimes have coordinated adventures. At the start of ''[[VideoGame/ExtrapowerAttackOfDarkforce Attack of Darkforce]]'', Sharkungo's concern isn't that the distance between the Earth and the Shakun Star is massive, it's that he couldn't fly to the Earth faster than the Dark Force fleet can. Thankfully, the resident SpaceMaster helps cut his trip down to hours. Days or weeks into the story, Forcestar joins him on Earth, having just flown on his own power.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* Space travel in ''Roleplay/NexusGate'' is a very casual thing. People commute to work regularly on public transit ships and own their own private craft.

* Subverted in ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes'': Though large fleets move through space with seeming ease, it does take quite a bit of time. Reinhard's flight from Urvashi to Fezzan is stated to take three weeks.

** Covenant FTL technology is much more refined, despite being merely inferior copies of [[{{Precursors}} Forerunner]] technology. In ''Literature/HaloFirstStrike'', [[VoiceWithAnInternetConnection Cortana]] compares human Shaw-Fujikawa FTL drives and the Covenant ones to a blunt instrument and a scalpel, respectively. Human ships almost literally punch a large hole in space/time into slipspace. The power requirements are enormous. Covenant drives cut a tiny slit in space, which massively reduces their power costs, vastly decreases their travel times, and allows them to exit slipspace with pinpoint accuracy. It's also heavily implied that humans could easily improve on the Covenant tech if they got their hands on it. Every Covenant ship captured in the novels gets conveniently destroyed before it can be brought back for study... until around the ''VideoGame/{{Halo 4}}'' era, anyways.

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* Literature/WhateleyUniverse: the underlying premise of "Tennyo's Easter" since Tennyo only has one week of Easter break and she's traveling all over the Milky Way galaxy. Having found and rescued an [[CoolShip ultra-fast sentient starship]] built by the [[{{Precursors}} Isokist]]--possibly the same ones which created the Star Stalker in the first place--helps a lot.

* In the WesternAnimation/JoeOrioloFelixTheCat cartoons, space travel is very casual. The Professor's spaceship and Poindexter's flying saucer allow them to travel to other planets with all the effort and time of going on a Sunday drive.

** Anyone with a GreenLanternRing can pretty much sling themselves across the entire universe with no thought to time, food, water or even bathroom requirements.

This is usually done deliberately; works that use it err on the softer side of science fiction.

* ''WesternAnimation/InvaderZim'' is a weird example: in the first episode, it takes Zim six months to travel from Conventia to Earth, but later episodes show him traveling to Irken or other planets in what one presumes is a relatively short time (Dib mentions Zim had been gone "three days" when he went to Foodcourtia). [[WildMassGuessing Perhaps the tallest put him on a cheap flight?]]

* In ''VideoGame/AsurasWrath'', the grand finale has Asura [[spoiler: in his Destructor form casually flying pasts entire solar systems in mere seconds to beat the crap out of the final boss.]]

* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'' sports at least one use of this almost every episode. While not every ship has FTL capabilities, most modern ones are outfitted; civilian and military. The FTL drives are used to skip across space for reasons such as: running away from offenders ({{Ahem}}, [[spoiler:CYLONS]].), scouting out areas of space, or just quicker travel. Granted, the ships that didn't have FTL were quickly destroyed in the genocide.

This is usually done deliberately; works that use it err on the [[MohsScaleOfSciFiHardness softer side of SF.]]

Related to ConvenientlyClosePlanet. SisterTrope to CasualInterplanetaryTravel.

* Film/BattlefieldEarth: Thanks to the Psychlos' [[PortalNetwork network of teleporters]] Terl would casually teleport from [[VichyEarth Earth]] back to the planet Psychlo of an evening just to go to a bar.