Why would members of the public ever choose to take slower than light interstellar travel?

Another question on this site deals with the question of interstellar trade without faster than light travel. I'd like inspiration for a related but more generic question. Why would people choose to take an expensive and years long interstellar journey in a world allowing ubiquitous fast, but sub-luminal travel?

Some useful scene setting information:

• Fancy soft science fiction engines allow small (<100 person) space ships to travel at 0.99c in intergalactic space.
• This travel can either be conscious, costing about 5 years salary per light year for an average worker, or in a sleeper state in which metabolic processes are slowed for two years salary per light year.
• Larger cheap/government sponsored generational & sleeper ships have existed for a couple of centuries and have been used to terraform and colonise a region of space near the home world.
• No alien species are known to exist.

posted over 8 years ago

origimbo‭

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