I know exactly where a couple treasure chests are from memory, also I plan to cheat a bit and look up locations on youtube... Do I necessarily have to have a map in my inventory/bank to find the treasure?
Only to dig up buried treasure. There are Treasure Chest spawn locations all over Tamriel and then there are Treasure Maps that have their own buried treasure chests no one else can see or access unless they have that specific Treasure Map on their character.