I have a feeling that anyone who wants to travel great distances should not expect to return to or communicate back to Earth. I can see a possibility of the Earth being depeleated of its resources and everyone climbing into spaceships and travelling around trying to find a new home. It's possible for humans of a life expectancy of 100 years to get to stars that are 1000 lightyears away before they die. However, (more than) 1000 years will have passed on Earth.
As for bending space and what-not... I'm sure it's theoretically possible, however implementing such an amazing feat on a regular basis... well, I highly doubt it. The amount of energy required is just insane. With that kind of energy, we could do much more interesting things than warp speed
