I had to transfer a ship to my current station, I didn't feel like bounty hunting, it was like 2 am. Put on edtracker, joined an exploration trip and chatted for 15 minutes with a guy informing him if there were any ocean/elw worth scanning while talking about random stuff in between jumps. Then my ship arrived at the station and we parted both ways.
It's an extremely barebone kind of exploration, I'll give you that, but it's an alternative.
And I'm all in for more options and more ways to play the game, even if they still feel a little unripe.
That's actually brilliant! They really need to add more options for when joining a ship. Mining, Exporation, passenger missions, trading and so on.... at least you know what you will end up with