Street Kart Osaka

Street Kart Osaka (also known as Maricar) was one of our mutual favorite parts of our entire vacation in Japan.

Imagine a company that would put you in a cartoon character costume of your choosing, train you to use a gasoline powered go kart, and take you and your companions on a wonderfully lengthy tour through the public roads of Osaka! That company exists and it calls itself Street Kart Osaka. And it is awesome!

Street Kart Osaka is delightfully bonkers. The concept of driving go karts amongst full size motor vehicles on public roads in Osaka may sound dangerous but I never felt unsafe. It was simply thrilling.

Street Kart Osaka's two guides, Akira and Julian, were wonderful. They spoke fluent English. In fact, the whole activity was done in English. And Akira and Julian were friendly, relaxed, confident, patient, and competent. They gave us a very good tutorial on driving on the streets and how to operate the go karts. And they guided us well the entire time we were on the roads. I felt safe and comfortable the entire way.

 Street Kart Osaka's go karts were not some weak battery-powered things. They were gasoline powered and provided satisfying speed—not overwhelming but enough to be super fun.

When we went, their Street Kart Osaka's website was a bit out of date. It mentioned you could bring your own SD cards to use in their action cams for rent. But when we got there they explained that they no longer offer that option. They only sell you the SD cards and rent you the action camera that they strap on your chest. But they don't charge a fortune, so I didn't mind.

You can make reservations with Street Kart Osaka via FaceBook messenger or other methods mentioned on their website. And they only accept cash yen, no cards. So make sure to bring enough yen.

It was fun waving at pedestrians and motorists while on the roads. They'd often smile and wave back. One waved with her dog's paw. 😂 It was raining for much of our ride but it didn't spoil the fun one bit.

Before or after Street Kart Osaka, consider walking to Tenyo Noda for the best ramen soups we had in our entire Japan vacation.

OK,  you read or scrolled this far, so now you can watch some of the footage from my wife's Street Kart Osaka action camera: