How Lina Jamjoom Turned Her Son’s Curiosity Into a Jeddah Tour

A giant red fish, a fruit boat brimming with oversized mangoes and pomegranates, a massive clock frozen in time—Jeddah’s roundabout sculptures tumbled past the car windows as six-year-old Bilal peppered the vehicle with questions about the art on the way to speech therapy. His mother, Lina Jamjoom, an illustrator who spends her days curating wooden toys, pulled over—because her answers are never half-formed thoughts or a distracting shiny toy—and let him run around as she snapped pictures of him, turning the city’s art into an adventure. These interminable cross-city drives with Bilal brought out Lina’s creativity, and for two years she kept doodling and compiling information about these attractions, wrapping them in a book she titled, ‘Jeddah Explorers.’ “I wanted my son, and all the other kids of Jeddah, to see the magic of their home,” Lina shares with SceneTraveller. “To be as excited about home as they are about anywhere else.” But this game Lina had started with her son was too good to be kept in pages. And so—after the mothers at Bilal’s school kept asking her how he had suddenly become so curious and culturally aware—she decided to create a little squad of city detectives by transforming Jeddah Explorers into a physical children’s tour.  Partnering with Zamkana Tours, who brought their organising expertise, Lina quickly went back to her faithful crayons and started curating a pocket map and a trail across the Old City. She kept on designing, curating a tour for ten curious explorers aged 6 to 10, an age where questions come faster than traffic and wonder still fits neatly in a small backpack. Then, she put up a registration link on her Instagram, crossed her fingers, and hoped more kids beyond Bilal would be excited to turn the port city into a sprawling playground.  And so, on a sunny Saturday in February, Jeddah Explorers took to the streets for the first time. At the helm was Lina herself, guiding the children through the Historic Centre. A million questions here, a few close calls there, and then a child tugged at Lina’s sleeve and announced with absolute joy, “This is one of the most exciting days of my life!” For a founder whose journey began with a car full of questions, that was confirmation enough: Jeddah Explorers was doing exactly what it set out to do, helping children become fascinated with their city. For now, Lina’s tours don’t run on a fixed calendar or a laminated itinerary. “The routes shift depending on what catches my eye,” unfolding across pockets of the city that she feels are ready to be rediscovered through children’s questions. And though the project might still be stretching its limbs, Lina’s instinct of letting curiosity—rather than schedule—lead the way, means Jeddah Explorers will keep finding its footing in the most unexpected of places.  As for what comes next, Lina wants to take tour-guiding to another level, transforming the tour buses spread all over the Corniche into “roaming storybooks on wheels,” where children can peer out of the windows as though the city itself were turning its pages for them. “I want kids to stop, look, and have fun in their city.” After that, she has plans for outdoor “nature school” sessions, using the quiet trove tools, books, and curiosities she has been collecting for years. Once she’s conquered all of the city’s landscapes, she might open a full-fledged children’s museum showcasing Jeddah’s art and history.  It’s clear that, much like her tours, Lina’s plans keep changing, expanding. But no matter what she does—illustrate, curate, travel—she never loses sight of what’s important: kids having fun in their city. “For children, Jeddah is a playground,” Lina says with a smile. “They just need someone to show them how to play.”