Google Street View visits Egypt, tours pyramids and more

The Pyramids of Giza, the Great Sphinx, there's a lot to see in Egypt. However, it may not be a place you wish to travel to right at this moment, though there are no official warnings against it from the State Department. Fortunately you don't need to make the trip now, thanks to Google.

Street View, the ever-growing portfolio of images from the Google Maps team, has visited the North African nation and captured the sites in great detail. Included are all of the things that drive tourists to this location -- Pyramids of Giza, the Great Sphinx, ancient burial grounds and more.

"The civilization of ancient Egypt stood for thousands of years and left behind a rich legacy of architecture, art, medicine, politics, culture and more. Today, it looms large in our imagination as the home of Cleopatra, Ptolemy, Tutankhamun, people who worshipped cats as gods and buried their embalmed dead in tombs filled with treasures and sustenance for the afterlife", says Google's Tarek Abdalla, Head of Marketing for the Middle East and North Africa.

The company also points out that these images are "preserved in a new way with panoramic and immersive Street View imagery".

All of these images are now available right from your desk, no need for a passport or anything. And, like most Google products, it's free, so there's to reason not to check it out.