Your new travel guide…Kurt and Melissa Godwin start Discovery Map of Southwest Florida

Discovery Maps are colorful, hand-drawn maps that have become a favorite of travelers for navigating local dining, attractions, businesses, cultural experiences and tourist destinations. Discovery Map of Southwest Florida will include sites and destinations within Cape Coral, Pine Island, as well as Sanibel and Captiva Islands initially. Future plans include expansion to Ft Myers, Ft Myers Beach and Bonita Springs. Naples and Marco Island are also on the radar.

“We had retired to Cape Coral in late 2019. On a return trip to our previous home in Maryland this past summer, we kept finding Discovery Maps at every location while on a boat trip to the southern Chesapeake Bay. We absolutely loved them, and it got our wheels turning,” said Kurt. “We were not ready to settle down to complete retirement, so we called Discovery Map and asked if they had a map in our area in Florida. They didn’t. We jumped on the opportunity to start a map down here and are very excited to bring these great maps to southwest Florida.

The Godwin’s were no strangers to franchising. The couple had previously run a Mosquito Joe location in Baltimore and Annapolis, MD. Starting from scratch, the couple built up their franchise to the number one Mosquito Joe in the U.S. with a staff of 35 and revenue topping $2.5 million.

“Building Mosquito Joe was incredibly rewarding, but a lot of work. At this stage of our lives, we didn’t want that level of intensity, but we could also not see ourselves totally idle.” said Melissa. “The Discovery Map opportunity gives us the chance to remain active and fully immerse in our community as business owners in our fairly new home of Cape Coral.”

Discovery Maps are typically found on display in local stores, restaurants, hotels and tourist attractions. In addition, DiscoveryMap.com offers curated content to complement/supplement the printed map. The interactive map found the website is to scale, thus can be used for turn-by-turn directions, as well as to access detailed information about areas of interest, places to eat, lodging and other noteworthy sites.

“As much as we rely on our smartphones, people still prefer printed-out maps,” said Kurt Godwin. “Although Discovery Map has a great website and online presence, the maps are truly like works of art and reveal the character and beauty of an area... and there is a lot of that in Cape Coral and the surrounding areas.”

Discovery Map International has more than 130 maps nationwide. More than 6,000 businesses advertise on Discovery Maps across the U.S. One annual ad on Discovery Map reaches, on average, 500,000 visitors. Discovery Map advertisers renew their ads at a very high rate and some of the older Discovery Map locations have businesses who have been advertising on the same map for more than 20 years.