Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - While John Forget, the co-owner of Elements Realty Group in Bucerías, needed a marketing tool to advertise his business in, he also saw the need for a good, free map for tourists to use and for other businesses to advertise in. With the help of a Romanian architect/artist/city planner, that's what he is going to have!

The map was created with the help of the Romanian woman, Raluca, who won a bid to do the job. He had read about map design and one suggestion was to outsource, so he posted his map job on the internet and asked people to bid on creating it. "My wife and I loved her work. She did this as a fun project to fill a couple of empty days," said Forget.

According to Forget, he actually hired two designers to see what directions they went in. His instruction to them was "touristy and fun." Raluca's was great and artsy, the other one... "not so much," said Forget. "We wanted something that was prettier than what had been done in the past and which also included the areas gated communities. No prior map had these developments and we thought that was crazy considering they represent about 1,000 homes. We had to drive through them ourselves because there really was no place to find the information."

His biggest surprise, he said, was how much work it really was. "I am not a designer, and I had to do a lot of the work myself. I expected this to be a one month project, but it turned into a three month project. We did alot of driving around to confirm, and we know it's still not 100 percent, but this will be the best tourist map to date," Forget says.

"An initial printing of 10,000 Bucerías maps will be available this week, and if all goes well, it will be available at advertisers' locations and anywhere else someone wants to make it obtainable free of charge," Forget states. "Also TheBuceriasMap.com is coming soon. It will be a bilingual website for local advertising." Forget will be starting a La Cruz map soon, but the initial printing of the Bucerías map is available now.