Driving from Kent to Norfolk

[EleanorRugby]

We are going on holiday on Saturday to Norfolk, staying on the east coast north of Great Yarmouth.
I think best route is M25, M11 then A roads. Dh (who grew up in Essex) thinks better to get off M25 at jct 28 and then A roads through Essex and Suffolk
On the route planner I used online the mileage is very similar but I think best to stay on motorways for as long as possible!

Is there anyone who has travelled either route recently or know this journey well and can advise.

Thanks

Something to look forward to on your holiday...

Holidaying in Norfolk

True, Soup, I was pretty much on the south circular so I would follow that around instead of heading outwards towards the M25. Although to be fair it's a coin toss as to which one will be delayed...

SaulGood On my God I'm so loving that link. He looks just like the Father Christmas in Raymond Briggs' book which was, and still is, one of my favourite ever books! And of course that Father Christmas lives for his summer holiday each year, it is the only way he can get through Xmas

it goes on and on through a vast expanse of nothing as you dream of pitching your car into a ditch just to break up the tedium.

this made me burst out laughing Saul because I know exactly what you mean. I'm not sure if it would have been on the A47, can't think without googling where that even goes, but I once had to drive from Norwich to Market Rasen in Lincs and I remember thinking I'd stumbled into some featureless post apocalyptic wasteland where nothing happened for so many miles on end that I started to wonder if I was actually driving while in a zombie coma.

Itsraining I once went to a wedding in Market Rasen and it felt like the furthest-away place I'd ever had to get to - and my friend who grew up there had to take the same tiny winding roads to get anywhere - school, a train station.

Mind you for such a far away tiny place, an awful lot of people seem to know of it or have friends from there...

We drove from Surrey to North Norfolk last weekend and the traffic through the Dartford tunnel was atrocious.

Suggest you travel at silly o'clock.

M25, M11, A11, A14, A11, A1065. But that was to Cley, not G Yarmouth.
Fine apart from the crossing

Lamb, really? After the accident on the M25 (horse box v Kia at J9) we had a dream run on the M25 and then all the way up to Norwich. Probably hit the tunnel around 11.30 on Saturday? It was as smooth as it's been since they started the roadworks there.

Good drive back as well, on Sunday afternoon.

Well we're here and we had a great journey with no hold ups at all. We went M25/M11/A11 and it took us 3 hours, and we didn't leave that early either (9:15). Been on the beach all afternoon which was huge, lovely and not particularly busy - maybe as its holiday changeover day - but very windy I'm very glad we packed our large windbreak! All the kids were on the beach in swimsuits and shorts and all the adults were in coats and hooded tops!