From the time I was a small child, five years old, until my adolescence, I would walk the paths that connected my father’s village (Aprovato) with my mother’s village (Arni), as well as the settlement where my grandfather Ypatios (my mother’s father) had his cottage, Ateni. And not only those, but many others too: in Palaiopoli, Lefka, Agia Eleousa, Kypri, Batsi, Katakoilos, Remata, and beyond. For three months every summer and fifteen days at Easter (since I was born and lived in Athens), my parents would “drag” me along to the village festivals, the evening gatherings, the daily life in the fields, the journeys with animals (donkeys, mules), the carrying of water, and more. All these memories have remained deeply etched in my heart. Today, many years later, having climbed and walked across mountains and landscapes throughout Greece and around the world as a mountaineer and hiker, I return to Andros—my own Ithaca—to walk both the old and the new paths and to experience, in a different role, the Nature and the People of my island. Living in recent years in Chania, I come with joy and anticipation, taking two ships to be here with my fellow hikers so that we may share in these old and new journeys. I warmly thank the entire team of the Andros Research Center for the creative effort it has carried out all these years, and I hope to add my own small stone to this beautiful journey…