If you can travel near the speed of light, the trip back to a future era of Earth would almost always be more exciting than stepping onto a distant barren planet.

Edit: "back to a future era" hehe-- i.e., the trip away and then back to Earth at near-light speeds will always put you way further into the future than you would have been just staying put on Earth. At the current rate of technological change, you're guaranteed some exciting new changes that will almost always be more exciting and surprising than whatever planet you visited.

Or find a radioactive wasteland worse than far away planets or no Earth at all destroyed by one of those technological advances.