Exploration Tour (2023)

The Exploration Tour was the eighty-ninth tour of Mario Kart Tour, which began on February 8, 2023 and ended on February 21, 2023. The tour introduced a brand new course to Mario Kart Tour and the Mario Kart series called Piranha Plant Cove, making it the first tour to introduce a new course since the 2022 Sundae Tour thirteen tours prior (which introduced Sky-High Sundae) and the first tour to introduce multiple routes of the same new course together. Reflecting the theme of the tour, two variants of Shy Guy based on the yellow and light-blue Exploring Shy Guys seen on GBA Sunset Wilds were added as new drivers. This was the second tour to have no repeated courses, the first being the Animal Tour. The King Bob-omb Cup debuted in this tour, even though King Bob-omb had been playable since the Pirate Tour and had been available in regular pipes since the Rosalina Tour.

The Winterfest, which began in the previous tour, lasted until the end of this tour.

The Coin Rush course of this tour was Piranha Plant Cove. The menu's background featured several ruins from the aforementioned course as the landmarks for this tour.

Daily Spotlight
The Daily Spotlight contains a mixture of items themed around the tour, items that have ranked tracks as favorites, and gold items. The rates listed are specific for that type of item; drivers, karts, and gliders are selected separately. Items marked with an asterisk (*) do not appear in the Daily Spotlight during the week they are available as Spotlight Shop banner items.

Today's Challenge
Players' most recently used kart and glider are chosen, and favorite and favored ones have extra priority. Opponents are arranged randomly. On day 1 of this tour, players finish a balloon battle in GCN Cookie Land in the Mii Cup using the Petey Piranha Mii Racing Suit for a free pipe launch. Starting from day 2, players have to finish a race in the earliest incomplete course that is not in any of the ranked cups using the driver shown on the course's thumbnail every day to obtain the corresponding reward in the table below. Once all of the courses are completed, the courses are selected at random.

Rewards
Gold cells indicate rewards that are exclusive to Gold Pass members.

Gold Pipe
The Gold Pipe, including the All-Clear Pipe, randomly shoots out one of the following regular High-End items. The appearance rate can be viewed via the "Pipe content" link on the Gold Pass purchase screen.

Token Shop
The limited-time event where event tokens appear began on February 8, 2023 and ended on February 21, 2023. Event tokens could be earned by collecting them on courses.

Tier Shop
The shop features a variety of set and randomized items available for purchase. The item slots in the shop are unlocked based on the highest tier of players.

Announcement
In the announcement post for the tour on official social media accounts, two images of Piranha Plant Cove, acting as a, were released, featuring ten differences in total:
 * 1) Luigi's kart is a Red Crawly Kart in the first image, and a Blue Crawly Kart in the second.
 * 2) A boomerang is present behind Petey Piranha's kart on the far-left of the second image, but is absent from the first.
 * 3) Captain Toad is in a different pose.
 * 4) A large pillar is standing upright in the second image, but has fallen over in the first.
 * 5) The Maw-Ray is higher in the second image.
 * 6) Purple sparkles in the background are in a different arrangement between the images.
 * 7) Mario uses his normal variant in the first image, but his Classic variant in the second.
 * 8) Bowser is holding a Bowser's Shell in the first image, but a Spiny Shell in the second.
 * 9) The Shy Guy at the front is blue in the first image, but yellow in the second.
 * 10) The Item Boxes are at a different angle between the images.