City maps come in all forms and formats – in guidebooks, as elaborate fold-outs that require expert engineering to actually unfold, giveaway ones at airports and tourist offices, digital ones dotted with superfluous icons. Unless they’re part of a rare Baedeker from the 1860s, few make elegant keepsakes. With this in mind, two young local travellers and entrepreneurs, Kata and Ádám, have created a scratch-off map for Budapest, turning their city into a field of gold, whose treasures you discover as you remove the layer around each landmark. With each sight visited, another part of the map can be satisfyingly revealed.

After backpacking in the Far East then coming home to Budapest, Kata and Ádám fell in love with the notion of creating a special map for visitors to their city, with each destination a discovery. “The idea came from our love of travel and our love of Budapest where we live and work,” they said. “Plus we’re pretty creative!” With these three things in mind, the pair set out to devise the world’s first Scratch-Off Budapest Map in the form of a poster, both a travel guide and a souvenir gift.

“Our first project is Budapest, but we plan to create for other big cities as well. As we know, there are no such scratch-off posters on the market purely for cities. For Budapest, we focus on the city centre and the must-see attractions. Depending on how quickly you go round, you can cover them all in a three-day weekend.”

Set on 200-gramme art paper, the map exudes retro elegance, the landmarks beautifully illustrated, backdropped by the main arteries of the city and offset by the enticing blue of the Danube. When framed, it brightens up any wall.

“In the future we would like to expand our portfolio with other beautiful European destinations where we ask for help from locals with same enthusiasm for their own cities. We already have a list of ten places in the pipeline.”

The Budapest Scratch-off Map currently retails at €22.90 online and is also available at designer souvenir shops across Budapest.