If you are worried about colliding with stars, just throttle down when you are in the warp bubble and you will be at a stand still when you come out.
There is a gaf minor faction in Apam Napat, the system looks pretty nice too and has a big empire spacestation in there and a few other smaller outposts.
Don't fly without insurance, other than that, do what ever you feel is the most fun thing to do. There are also a few advanced maneuvers you can do with flight assist off so practicing flying like that will help you out in a long run, rings and space stations are great way to learn to fly with FA off.
This guy has a few good videos on the tricks you can do.