If I understand GR correctly, FTL travel is (in principle) not necessary to reach an alien race in reasonable time, no matter the distance - from the point of view of an astronaut. Due to length dilation, from the point of view of an astronaut, the whole universe gets pretty small when he travels with almost-lightspeed, so that he can travel, say, one lightyear in five minutes (assuming he can survive the acceleration). The problem is that the wait on earth would be pretty long...

I'm not actually 100% sure my interpretation of GR is correct, if anyone of the people who know more about it could elaborate, I'd greatly appreciated it (for example, I think acceleration has effects on time, too, which could crush my "long distance travel in no time"-theory).