Liv Clarke

Liv Clarke uses first-hand travel and food-led reporting to show readers where to go, what to eat and how places feel, from traditional markets to international city breaks. She is the Tourism Writer for the Manchester Evening News and an NCTJ-trained senior reporter who joined the team in 2021. She covers UK and world travel news, Manchester Airport, and places to visit and things to do in Greater Manchester and across the North West. Across her work she links destinations with their food halls, markets and cafes, treating what people eat and drink as a key part of any day out or trip.

Greater Manchester markets and food halls

Liv regularly focuses on Greater Manchester’s markets and their food offer, treating them as destinations in their own right rather than background detail. In a Bury Market feature she spends the morning exploring the stalls, tries local delicacies including Bury Black Pudding, and speaks directly with the people who make them. The piece combines tasting notes, trader voices and scene-setting, giving a clear sense of how the market works and what visitors can expect. Her coverage of major market food halls forced to close during a heatwave follows the same pattern, explaining how operational decisions affect traders, shoppers and the experience of eating out under one roof.

Food is central in this strand of her work: she highlights specific dishes and producers, ties them to place, and uses them to show why a visit is worthwhile. Headlines framed in the first person, such as “I spent the morning at Bury Market…”, underline that she is on the ground, mixing reported detail with her own impressions. For stories involving disruption, such as weather-related closures, she shifts into a service mode, making clear how access to popular food halls and market venues is changing and what it means for anyone planning a visit.

Days out and hidden places to visit

A second thread in Liv’s reporting is days out to lesser-known or newly fashionable spots, often within easy reach of major roads or transport hubs. In her feature on an unassuming road off the M60 that leads to a hidden lake, she heads out on a country walk and stops off at a Scandi-style cafe, blending route description, landscape and a close look at the food and drink on offer. She uses this format to turn a simple walk into a full day out, with clear attention to atmosphere and the small details that make the cafe memorable.

When she visits the Greater Manchester town named one of England’s best places to live, she explores everything from funky murals to what she calls “one of the most stunning civic buildings in Europe” and asks whether the town lives up to the hype. The focus here is on what visitors will actually see and do, rather than abstract rankings, and the piece reads as a practical and visual guide to the town’s centre. In another article she writes as a travel writer about her favourite place to visit, showing the same mix of personal perspective and concrete description of a destination. Across these stories, she uses “I went…” and “I spent…” headlines to signal that the coverage is rooted in lived experience rather than desk-based curation.

Manchester Airport and international trips

Liv’s beat extends from local days out to international travel, with Manchester Airport as a recurring anchor. Her professional bio states that she covers UK and world travel news and Manchester Airport alongside regional destinations. In a piece about flying to New York from Manchester for a three-day trip, she documents the short break in detail, connecting the practicalities of direct flights with what travellers can fit into a brief stay. Other work and public posts show her writing about flying to the “New York of the East” on direct routes from Manchester and sharing tips for navigating new systems such as Europe’s EES when travelling abroad.

This strand of coverage is more explicitly service-driven, focused on routes, airports and how to make the most of limited time in major cities. Liv brings the same descriptive style she uses for markets and walks to these pieces, but sets it against the logistics of modern travel — flight options, airport experience and on-the-ground itineraries once travellers arrive. The common thread is helping readers understand how a journey from Manchester connects them to wider world destinations, while still giving them a sense of what those places are like once they land.

Personal travel reflection and seaside nostalgia

Alongside news and guides, Liv writes more reflective pieces that draw on her own holiday memories. In her contribution to the “My Favourite Holiday” series, titled “My favourite holiday: beach huts, deck chairs and freezing-cold dips…”, she looks back on trips to the seaside. The article lingers on details such as beach huts, deck chairs and cold-water swims, using them to convey why these holidays stand out. It shows a more nostalgic voice, but still anchored in recognisable locations and experiences.

These reflective articles sit within her broader tourism role and reinforce how much of her coverage is based on personal experience of travel rather than abstract recommendations. Across different outlets in the same group she is consistently described as a Tourism Writer and NCTJ-trained senior reporter, with previous experience in other reporting roles before moving into this specialism. Taken together, her work spans hard news about travel and closures, practical guides to days out, international trip write-ups and memory-driven features, linked by an emphasis on how people experience places through both setting and food.