Go-Karting Through Tokyo as a Pair: What It’s Actually Like to Ride Two Karts Side by Side
Most couples photograph Tokyo from the pavement.
Ali and Minna drove it — in two separate karts, one behind the other, through Shinjuku and Kabukicho and out across Shibuya Crossing. The course was the 90-minute Shibuya / Shinjuku tour, which departs from the JAPANKART Shinjuku branch and costs 21,000 yen per driver. By the time the convoy came back, the tarmac was wet.
Ali and Minna are a travel duo posting to an audience across the Middle East and Europe — their Instagram bio reads Finland and Iraq — with 834,000 followers on Instagram, 2.7 million on TikTok and 344,000 subscribers on YouTube. Their feed runs on trips taken together: Oman, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Norway, Tunisia, Qatar. Tokyo from a viewing deck was never going to be the version they filmed.
“Our experience with JAPANKART was amazing! We had so much fun driving through Tokyo and seeing the city in a completely different way. The staff were very friendly and helpful, and it was definitely one of the most memorable experiences of our trip. We highly recommend it!”
— Ali & Minna
Can Two People Ride the Same Go-Kart in Tokyo?
No. Every kart in the JAPANKART fleet is a single-seat vehicle, so a couple cannot share one. Two people book two karts and ride them in the same convoy, one ahead of the other, swapping positions at lights and photo stops. Ali and Minna did exactly this for the full 90 minutes of the Shibuya / Shinjuku course.
In practice, riding as a pair changes the experience more than it sounds. You are not sitting next to each other having a conversation — the karts are open, the engines are loud, and the group moves in single file through live traffic. What you get instead is the other person permanently in your frame: ahead of you at the lights, beside you across the crossing, in every piece of footage you take.
Both riders in a pair need to meet the licence requirements in full. There is no arrangement where one person drives and the other rides on the same kart.
How Do You Pick a Costume Before the Ride?
Costume rental is included in the price of every JAPANKART tour, and you choose yours inside the branch before you drive. The costumes hang on a rack on hangers, and you pick one off it the way you would in a shop. Ali took a yellow Pikachu-style onesie; Minna took a grey bunny onesie with pink inner ears.
Selection is from whatever is in stock on the day, so the earlier slots tend to have the fullest rack. Other riders in the same convoy that afternoon went out in orange and green — the group reads as a set of colours moving through traffic, which is a large part of why the tour photographs the way it does.
One practical note: you wear the costume over your own clothes, and it is not waterproof. What you put on underneath matters more than most people expect. More on that below.
What Does the Shinjuku-to-Shibuya Route Look Like From the Driver’s Seat?
The 90-minute Shibuya / Shinjuku course leaves the Shinjuku garage, runs through Shinjuku and Kabukicho, crosses west to the wide avenues of Omotesando, passes through Shibuya Crossing, stops near Yoyogi Park, and returns toward Shinjuku. The scenery changes character three times in an hour and a half.
The first stretch is the loud one. A go-kart seats you roughly at the height of a car’s wheel arch, so Kabukicho’s signage — the Don Quijote frontage, the pachinko façades, Alpen Tokyo near the east exit — arrives above you rather than in front of you. You are reading the district from underneath it.
Then the road opens. Omotesando and the approach to Yoyogi Park are tree-lined and comparatively quiet, and the convoy stretches out. This is the part of the route riders rarely expect: several minutes of green, with the karts spaced along a wide avenue, before the city closes back in.
Shibuya Crossing is the landmark most people book for, and it is the shortest part of the ride. You are through it in under a minute, in traffic, with pedestrians on both sides.
Should You Book the 90-Minute Shinjuku Course or the 120-Minute Tokyo Tower Course?
JAPANKART runs two Shibuya-based courses from two different branches, and they cover almost no common ground apart from Shibuya Crossing itself. The 90-minute course is the Shinjuku-and-Omotesando route; the 120-minute course is the Tokyo Tower route. Choose which half of central Tokyo you want to see from road level.
Shibuya / Shinjuku 90min Tour
・Price： 21,000 yen per driver
・Departs from： Shinjuku branch
・Route： Shinjuku, Kabukicho, Omotesando, Shibuya Crossing, Yoyogi Park area
・Branch hours： 9:30–20:00 (summer 15:30–20:00)
・Best for： neon districts, youth-fashion streets, and a long green stretch mid-route
Shibuya / Tokyo Tower 120min Tour
・Price： 26,000 yen per driver
・Departs from： Kanda branch
・Route： Route 246, Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo Tower photo stop, Roppongi, Tokyo Station area
・Branch hours： 12:45–22:00 (summer 16:15–22:00)
・Best for： landmark photography, and a dedicated stop at the base of Tokyo Tower
The overlap between the two is a single intersection. Everything on either side of Shibuya Crossing is different.
Ali and Minna rode the 90-minute course. For a first-hand account of the 120-minute Tokyo Tower course, see DOKS’s ride from Shibuya Crossing to Tokyo Tower.
What Happens If It Rains During a Tokyo Go-Kart Tour?
Ali and Minna’s ride began under blue sky and ended on wet roads. The footage shows the change: bright clouds over Kabukicho in the early minutes, flat grey by the middle of the route, and standing water on the tarmac by the time the convoy parked. The tour ran to completion.
This is the part worth planning for, because the karts are open on all sides and the costume over your clothes is fleece, not a shell. Wet weather does not make the ride unpleasant so much as it makes your own layers matter — riders who have something quick-drying underneath finish comfortably, and riders in denim do not.
What the footage does show is that a wet road changes the group’s pace rather than stopping it. The convoy runs slower, the gaps between karts open up, and the staff take a more visible role at junctions — which brings us to the question most first-time riders actually have.
Is It Safe to Drive a Go-Kart Through Tokyo Traffic?
Every JAPANKART tour is accompanied by two staff vehicles, and depending on traffic conditions a staff member may also follow the group on a motorcycle. The convoy is led from the front and closed from the back, so a rider is never alone in a lane. Ali and Minna’s group ran roughly five karts plus staff.
Two things are visible in their footage that the booking page does not convey. The first is the support vehicle: a red Honda in JAPANKART livery carrying yellow placards reading kart and guiding in progress, which sits behind the group and tells the traffic around you what the convoy is. The second is that at the busier junctions a staff member in a white helmet and high-visibility jacket is standing in the road, managing the group’s merge.
It is worth being clear about what this is, though: these are public roads, and you are in the same lanes as taxis, vans and delivery trucks. The staffing reduces the difficulty of driving in an unfamiliar city. It does not turn the route into a closed circuit.
Watch Ali & Minna’s Full Ride
What Ali & Minna Said About the Tour
“Our experience with JAPANKART was amazing! We had so much fun driving through Tokyo and seeing the city in a completely different way. The staff were very friendly and helpful, and it was definitely one of the most memorable experiences of our trip. We highly recommend it!”
— Ali & Minna, September 2026
“Seeing the city in a completely different way” is the literal description of what a go-kart does to Tokyo: it drops your eye level by about a metre and puts you in the traffic rather than beside it. And the note about staff is the same thing the footage shows from the outside — two support vehicles, a guided convoy, and someone standing in the junction when the group needs to merge.
Before You Book: Documents, Price and Meeting Point
The course
・Course： Shibuya / Shinjuku 90min Tour
・Price： 21,000 yen per driver
・Departs from： JAPANKART Shinjuku Branch, 5-11-23 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0022
・Telephone： +81 3 5311 4955
・Branch hours： 9:30–20:00 (summer 15:30–20:00)
What you must bring — all three, as originals
・Your driving licence. Provisional licences and paper licences are not accepted.
・An International Driving Permit issued under the 1949 Geneva Convention.
・Your passport.
Exceptions to the IDP rule
・If your licence was issued in Switzerland, Germany, France, Taiwan, Belgium or Monaco, an IDP is not recognised. Bring an official Japanese translation of your licence from JAF instead, together with your original licence and your passport.
・Permits issued under the 1968 Vienna Convention are not accepted.
・Permits issued by third-party websites are not accepted.
・UAE permits must be issued by ATCUAE.
・Indian permits must be the original booklet, not the paper type.
・US military personnel can use a valid USFJ Form 4EJ.
If you turn up without the right documents, you cannot drive, and no refund is given. This is the single most common reason a booking falls through, so check it before you book rather than on the day.
What the price includes
・An English-speaking guide with the group for the whole route
・A safety briefing before you drive
・Costume rental
・A body mount for your phone or GoPro
・Photographs taken by staff during the tour, shared with you at the end
・A jacket and goggles if you need them
・Snacks
・Two staff vehicles accompanying the group
The rules themselves come from Japanese law rather than from us — see the National Police Agency and the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department on international permits, and JAF on official translations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can we request two karts next to each other?
Karts are ridden in convoy rather than in fixed pairs, so a couple will not be locked into adjacent positions for the whole route. In practice the order shifts at lights and photo stops, which is how Ali and Minna ended up in each other’s footage throughout.
Will we be able to hear each other while driving?
Not really. The karts are open and the engines are audible, and the group is riding in live traffic with an English-speaking guide leading. Plan on gesturing at each other rather than talking.
Do we get photographs of both of us?
Staff take photographs during the tour and share all of them with you at the end. You can also fit your own phone or GoPro to the body mount that comes with the tour.
What should we wear under the costume?
The costume goes over your own clothes and is fleece rather than waterproof, so treat it as a layer, not a shell. Quick-drying clothing underneath is the safe choice — Ali and Minna’s ride finished on wet roads.
Can we film while we drive?
Yes. A body mount for a phone or GoPro is included with every tour, which is how the driver’s-view footage in the video above was shot.
Final Takeaway
Tokyo is a city that most visitors experience from above: a deck, a window, a platform. Ninety minutes at road level in a costume is the opposite of that, and doing it as two people in two karts turns the city into something you watch each other move through.
The weather turned on Ali and Minna, and they went back out on the wet road anyway. That is usually the version people remember.
