Welcome to the Guild Brian! Well you are in the right place to learn. I've heard very good reviews regarding coral draw, though I've never used it myself. Unfortunately, I don't think many others here use it, or at least if they do not many have bothered to create a map-making tutorial for Coral Draw. GIMP on the other hand is well supported. Of course it would be good to get to know both forms of software as Coral Draw will likely have options that GIMP does not. Who knows, maybe one day you'll write a Coral Draw tutorial for us!

Cheers,
-Arsheesh