We will be passing London soon by car. There might be some time available to have a day trip to London. I was advised not to drive all the way to the center of London for multiple reasons (congestion fee, scarce parking space, time lost on traffic congestion, etc). I will be driving from Kent to the North of England and pass the north east.
Where can I find decent parking space with a quick tube connection into the city?
In this case, first, you want a live tube map with Google maps underneath.
Live train map for the London Underground (yes, those are the trains moving on the map!)
As you can now clearly, see, this gives you a couple of options - the District Line (Green) and the Central Line (Red).
Upminster (end of the District line) is your closest stop there.There is a parking lot right next to the tube station, with a couple of hundred parks. The Google Maps satellite view shows that during the day even, this isn't totally full.
Epping (end of the Central Line) is your second option. This is just near the junction of the M25 and the M11. It too, has a big parking area next to the station. The downside here is that on Google Maps, it's showing as completely full.
Of course, you can't know for sure what time of day these images were taken.
Personally I'd go for the Epping one if you're getting in early - the District line is one Londoners will not usually trust for reliability, and if you're early enough you won't have to worry about the car park filling up too much. It's also conveniently close to your M11 turn-off junction.
I'd suggest Stratford, parking at the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre - it has 5000 spaces in multi-storey car parks, with a day's parking costing £5. It's 10-15 minutes' drive from the end of the M11, down the A12 and through the Olympic Park.
Stratford has large, well-staffed underground stations on the Central Line, Jubilee Line and DLR, as well as Overground, national and high-speed (HS1) trains into London, so you've got plenty of options for getting in and out; it's in Zone 3, so an off-peak (after 9:30 weekdays) travelcard into town costs £8, or £7.70 on Oyster.
