In reality, yes they wouldn't be traveling at warp all the time. We get that. Why on the show however did they ALWAYS have to show Voyager in one of those non-warp time periods? In fact, most episodes had Voyager start out at impulse in the middle of nowhere or already at a planet, then do some shit for the episode, and end with a scene of Voyager flying away slowly at impulse. I hated when an episode ended with a slow flyaway when the episode didn't deal with energy conservation or repair. It leaves the viewer thinking, "okay, they finished with the stuff they were doing in that episode and the ship is fine so why aren't they continuing their journey to get home?"
There were stretches of episodes where we didn't see any warp at all. Think about it, how many times did we really see the warp nacelles up and a good flyby at warp? We saw more on TNG for goodness sake. For the show, it would have been smarter to show Voyager at warp more often (more warp periods and less non-warp periods) because that is the whole point of the show - getting back to the alpha quadrant. More episodes could have started with Voyager coming out of warp at a planet or leaving at warp. And nobody says that they have to go warp 9.975 all the time. Go warp 1! The viewer needs to see that more often to appreciate the whole urgency and desire to get home.
There were stretches of episodes where we didn't see any warp at all. Think about it, how many times did we really see the warp nacelles up and a good flyby at warp? We saw more on TNG for goodness sake. For the show, it would have been smarter to show Voyager at warp more often (more warp periods and less non-warp periods) because that is the whole point of the show - getting back to the alpha quadrant. More episodes could have started with Voyager coming out of warp at a planet or leaving at warp. And nobody says that they have to go warp 9.975 all the time. Go warp 1! The viewer needs to see that more often to appreciate the whole urgency and desire to get home.
