Treasure Map with a Boat Coloring Page

Add this treasure map coloring page to your collection and a whole island is waiting to be filled in. The Treasure Map with a Boat Coloring Page is an old sheet of parchment with torn edges, a dashed trail winding from the beach at the bottom all the way up to a big X in the top corner, a compass rose, two palm islands, a skull and crossbones and a little ship sailing past.

It is a free printable treasure map coloring page for children from 5 to 11, and it works for a pirate party, a treasure hunt game or a rainy Saturday.

How this coloring page was created

The prompt behind this page is "An old treasure map filling the page, with a dotted path winding from the bottom up to an X, a palm tree, a compass rose in a corner and a small boat drawn out at sea". It went into Colorin AI, and the print ready coloring page came back in seconds with every landmark spaced out so none of them crowd each other.

Asking for the path to wind "from the bottom up" turned the trail into a long S that swings from side to side all the way up the sheet, and that one line winds between the landmarks from the beach to the X. The word "old" gave the parchment its ragged, notched border, drawn as a row of torn teeth all the way around the edge.

What's in this treasure map coloring page

A map is a page a child can read, not only color. The trail has a start and a finish, and following it from the beach to the X is half the fun before a single crayon comes out.

It also breaks into pieces naturally, so a short sitting can cover the compass rose alone while a longer one gets the whole island, and nothing looks unfinished in between.

The compass rose fills the top left corner: an eight pointed star inside two rings, with N, W, E and S lettered around it. The X in the opposite corner is drawn as two wide crossed bars with room inside to color. Between them the trail runs as a line of separate dashes, each one a small rounded block.

Two ranges of mountains sit on the left, a pair of peaks in the upper one and three in the lower, and under them a skull with two crossed bones. On the right a sailing ship with three sails and a pennant rides three lines of water, and below it an island carries a palm tree, a waterfall and a cluster of round rocks. A second palm, much larger, grows on the beach at the bottom left, and scattered clouds fill the gaps.

Coloring Ideas and Techniques

Parchment looks best in a wash of tan or pale yellow over the whole sheet, with the torn edge left a shade darker so the paper seems to curl. Against that background the trail can go bright red and the X can go black, which is exactly how a map in a story would be marked.

The compass rose rewards two colors alternating point by point, and the mountains work well in gray with green at their feet. Keeping the sea pale blue and the islands green separates land from water at a glance, and a gold crown on the palm leaves ties the two islands together.

Drew a map of your own hideout at school? Turn that drawing into a coloring page and color your own treasure map.

Frequently Asked Questions