Seriously, to get beyond the solar system is a tough technological cookie to crack ( chew?). The Jet Propulsion Laboratory has proposed a mission called the Thousand AU Probe which is an unmanned space craft that would travel 20 Astronomical Units per day, at 95,000 kilometers per second, and make it about 1000 Astronomical Units from the sun. The nearest star is just over 260,000 Astronomical Units from the sun. To get anything to travel at 95,000 kilometers per second would be a small miracle, and even a gravity assist from Jupiter would not do it. You need a new rocket technology, constant thrust...like the recently demonstrated Ion Engine developed by NASA.
Overall, the best bet seems to be building colony ships to carry thousands of passengers at very fast but sub-light speeds. Trips will take several thousand years, and would only be planned in case of major ecological catastrophy here on Earth. Think of it, really! Do you know of any human machinery that has lasted 1000 YEARS? The logistics of repairing one of a kind devices like starship engines would be staggering. This hasnt stopped engineers like Steven Kilston, a staff consultant at Ball Aerospace & Technologies in Boulder, Colo. He presented a paper at the American Astronomical Society about his proposed million-person habitat, traveling at 1/500 the speed of light and taking 20,000 years to get 20 light years. It would cost about $20 trillion and could be launched in the 26th century.
The above image is of a Vorlon cruiser, and you can see the original at Ray Tracing Examples.