Most of my exploration as Seizewell Warrior was done in a 47LY AspX. Now flying as "Alton Barnes" in a 59.5LY Anaconda. Those extra 12 LY do make a difference though it is still a long way, whichever way you cut it. I'm currently grinding up the Outer Arm, as far to the edge as the route plotter will calculate its path. Just reached my second waypoint yesterday evening, put the next one in for 16 - 17K LY further up and that's 330 jumps and still probably another 30K LY after that to the Beagle! Then, after the now customary day excursion to and picnic at Semotus (sp) Beacon, there's that long, long 65KLY trek back to the Bubble.
The good thing is that since departing Explorer's End, I've only encountered a handful of previously discovered systems. No ELW's so far, but plenty of water worlds or ammonia planets and gas giants with life so they will make a fair bit towards my Elite rating, if/when I get back to the Bubble. I was surface scanning at one point but with so much distance to cover I've pretty much abandoned that. I also set out with the intention of a FSS in every third system, but that has dropped back to every fifth or you just don't seem to be making much progress.