It occurred to me that there's another. No journey necessary!
Of course, you do have to suffer, doing all the housework, while your sisters or stepsisters or employer's daughters (if you're the hired girl) lord it over you. And you had best not tend your mother's grave, or the help will come from her.
Not that it's perfectly reliable. Your dead mother might send you help anyway. Or your fairy godmother might turn up. Or a nastier sort of fairy, that offers a Rumpelstiltskin bargain to get you a chance at the ball. What you want is the kind-and-unkind-girls. Mind you, even that's not a guarantee; you might get a fairy or an ambiguous figure. But it might mean that you are sent to fetch fire from a witch's house. Be scrupulously courteous, and she'll help you. (Cursing your sisters/stepsisters/employer's daughters, perhaps, but nemesis figures like that aren't evil per se.)
But it is a possibility.
