History Main / CasualInterplanetaryTravel

* In ''Literature/TheLordsOfCreation'' series, space travel is so expensive that in this alternate history there's little war on Earth as both sides of the Cold War have been forced to pour their resources into the Space Race, instead funding an arms race and Third World conflicts.

* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' series is a bit vague about its cosmology but it seems that "dimension", "world", and "planet" mean the same thing in the setting. Spells like Dimensional Transfer are readily available to {{Magitek}} mages, and in ''Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaViVid'', the heroes take a shuttle to another planet like one would take a bus to another town.

* ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'' have Quinjets capable of going from Earth to Mars in the space of a few hours, at the most.

* ''Franchise/TheAvengers'' have Quinjets capable of going from Earth to Mars in the space of a few hours, at the most.
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'':

* ''Franchise/WonderWoman'':

* In ''VideoGame/{{Starfield}}'', a game that also has CasualInterstellarTravel, hopping between planets is so casual it doesn't even require the ship's physics-bending [[FasterThanLightTravel grav drive]], which implies regular ship engines are powerful enough to cover interplanetary distances in no more than a couple of hours. As for the costs, although spaceships are the most expensive things you can buy in the game, privately owned ships are very common regardless, almost all planets exchange vast amounts of goods every day through large cargo haulers, and there's an entire industry built around offworld luxury vacations or cruises to distant worlds. All in all, unless you're a particularly sedentary type, no one in this setting gives space travel more than a passing thought.

** In the UC timeline, there exist colonies out at Jupiter, for gas-mining purposes. Travel out to the Jovian colonies is therefore fairly common and not much of a big deal, though it does take about six months on average to make the trip.

* ''Franchise/GreenLantern'': Members of the GL Corps use their Green Lantern rings to travel easily and quickly between worlds, no matter the distance.

** Back in the [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver]] and [[UsefulNotes/TheBronzeAgeOfComicBooks Bronze Ages]], Superman and ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} constantly and casually travelled to alien worlds, taking a few hours, minutes or even seconds to cross the vast distances between planets. Nonetheless, they also owned a starship to travel fast to Rokyn and other worlds where their powers didn't work.

** In ''ComicBook/TheKillersOfKrypton'', Supergirl's faster-than-light spaceship is capable of travelling between planets and space colonies in a ridiculous lapse of time.
** In the course of ''ComicBook/RedDaughterOfKrypton'', the Red Lanterns visit at least five planets thanks to their Red Rings and the [[CoolStarship Kaalvar]] starship.
** ''ComicBook/SupergirlWomanOfTomorrow'': In order to chase after the BigBad, Kara and Ruthye resort to an interplanetary transportation service, which is widely utilized by all kind of alien species across the galaxy, and looks an awful lot like an intercity bus.

** In Heinlein's juvenile ''Literature/{{The Rolling Stones}}'', buying a spaceship capable of flying from the Moon to the Asteroid Belt is roughly equivalent to buying a sailing vessel big enough for a family to go on an ocean voyage.

* 1940's pulp hero Literature/CaptainFuture blasts off in the ''Comet'' from his hidden Moonbase to the [[ScienceMarchesOn jungles of Jupiter]] without a care. The Creator/AllenSteele reconstruction novels tried to add some realism, at least by contemporary scifi standards, by having the ''Comet'' be the equivilent of a 'space yacht' that can only travel between Earth and the Moon, which has to be ferried by a Mothership MotherShip to get to Mars. In later Steele stories Captain Future has the Comet II which has an AlcubierreDrive, enabling this trope.

* ''Animation/HappyHeroes'' takes place on Planet Xing, in a time where interplanetary travel is commonplace.

SisterTrope of CasualInterstellarTravel. Sometimes there's minimum range limitation that makes only interstellar transit easy (say, wormholes), sometimes interstellar travel is still sublight or very difficult, but this is easy. At the other end of the spectrum, see InterplanetaryVoyage (where interplanetary travel is treated as so difficult that it takes up the whole story) and GenerationShips.

* From what we see of Lister's past in ''Series/RedDwarf'', interplanetary travel is quite casual, with people living on several different planets and moons and often moving or having vacations to another. However, ''interstellar'' travel is not casual, and requires being sealed in stasis as it takes years.
** Or at least it wasn't casual in Lister's home period. By the time Kryten left the solar system things must have become a bit easier, since his ship crash landed a long way from Earth (almost as far out as Red Dwarf itself got in 3,000,000 years.)
*** Though it is heavily implied that the crew had been dead for a good long time, and the ship might have been adrift for who knows how long, so it might not have been that much more casual.

* In the 2300s of ''Series/TheExpanse'' the Epstein drive, a fusion drive capable of constant thrust, has enabled the colonization of the Solar System. A single person can have their own mining ship, most trips take a couple weeks at most, and there are regular passenger services between population centers.

* ''Franchise/GreenLantern'': Members of the GL Corps use their {{Green Lantern Ring}}s to travel easily and quickly between worlds, no matter the distance.

** ''ComicBook/SupergirlWomanOfTomorrow'': In order to chase after the BigBad, Kara and Ruthye resort to an interplanetary transportation service, which is widely utilized by all kind of alien species across the galaxy.

* ''{{Manga/Aria}}'' has people from Earth regularly visiting Mars (now called Aqua) for business or pleasure. A girl the main cast meets returns in the first season just to go to a New Years festival.

* ''Anime/CowboyBebop'' has this, with the constantly broke protagonists nevertheless able to afford to operate an interplanetary fishing(!?) ship. This is facilitated by hyperspace, however.

* Subtle examples can be found in the ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' series, which likes to use [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point Lagrange points]] around the Earth for its colonies, with the furthest ones at the L2 point (where the Principality of Zeon is located) being past lunar orbit. The L3 point (where ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' begins for example) is on the opposite side from the moon at any given time. Travel between these points, or from one to the Earth or the moon, takes a few days at most. Going out past the immediate area of lunar orbit, however, takes several months.

** In [[ComicBook/SupergirlRebirth "The Killers of Krypton"]], Supergirl's faster-than-light spaceship is capable of travelling between planets and space colonies in a ridiculous lapse of time.

* ''{{Literature/Larklight}}'': Due to space itself working differently (SpaceIsAnOcean and also breathable for short periods), faster-than-light speed is a matter of mixing the right chemicals together in the engine room. Therefore, travel across the solar system is not significantly more difficult from travel across the sea in finest SpaceOpera form.

* ''Literature/AlienInASmallTown:'' A trip to Mars on a passenger ship takes weeks, and doesn't seem terribly expensive.
* Creator/RobertAHeinlein

* Due to space itself working differently in ''{{Literature/Larklight}}'' (SpaceIsAnOcean and also breathable for short periods) and faster-than-light speed a matter of mixing the right chemicals together in the engine room, travel across the solar system is not significantly more difficult from travel across the sea in finest SpaceOpera form.

* Slowly seen coming about in Creator/ArthurCClarke's [[Literature/TheSpaceOdysseySeries Space Odyssey]] series. 2001 A Space Odyssey has the first manned mission ever to Saturn (retconned to Jupiter in the rest of the series to match the film), by 2061, the third book, interplanetary travel is evidently much more common, with colonies or outposts on several planets and moons and book opens with the protagonist as a guest on a luxury commercial cruise to a comet. By 3001, interplanetary travel is fairly routine.

* In ''Literature/LucifersStar'' by Creator/CTPhipps, the Spiral (Orion's Arm) is a place that depends on CasualInterstellarTravel. Almost every planet is interdependent on other planets with only a few being self-sufficiently. Trillions of tons of cargo are shipped from one world to the next every day in the same way as a standard planet due to the existence of jumpspace as well as a wholly integrated spacer culture. An ApocalypseHow happened centuries ago when interstellar space travel was briefly rendered impossible.

* Averted in ''Fanfic/TheNextFrontier''; getting from Kerbin to the gas giant Jool took three months.

* Averted in ''The Children's Crusade'' by Creator/RobertReed. The three superpowers attempt manned landings on Mars - all of which fail. The American ship manages to reach Mars, but finds their lander inoperative - they leave back for Earth, while systems on the ship fail and kill 4 of the 7 crew. The European Union launches two ships. One of the landers explodes on entry, and the other lands - but is bogged down in extremely fine Martian dust, causing it to sit at an odd angle, making it impossible to lift off again, stranding the crew on the surface. The Chinese build an elaborate, highly efficient ship powered by a fusion rocket, which explodes from impurities in its reaction chamber as it leaves Earth's orbit.

* Averted in the more hard sci-fi novels of Creator/StephenBaxter, particularly ''{{Literature/Voyage}}''.
* Averted in the ''Literature/TheLordsOfCreation'' series by Creator/SMStirling. Space travel and colonisation is so expensive only the superpowers can afford it, using up the resources [[AlternateHistory that would otherwise be spent on the East/West arms race or Third World conflict.]]