Skyros, is the biggest and the most northern island of the Sporades in the Aegean Sea. It is located 38 km northeast of Kimi (Evia). It is 200 sq. km, has 130 km of coastline and 2900 inhabitants. The island has distinct geographical similarities with Evia. It can be perceived as two geographically different islands joined by a fertile plain. The people live in the plain and the northern part which is very green with olive tree groves and pine woods. It’s dominated by the Olympus mountain range. The southern part of the island, is rocky, windswept, barren and fascinating.

Skyros is dotted with small Greek Orthodox chapels. They offer a nice help with orientating while trekking across the island and are often maintained by the farmer / shepherd who lives nearby. They’re impeccably maintained and give insight into the spirituality of the islanders and the way they integrate this in their daily lives.

 In recent years the traditional terraced agriculture, practised since ancient times, has given place to the rearing of goats. The small pony-like horses which used to live wild on Skyros, particularly in the barren southeast, are now much reduced in numbers. The island's main sources of income are farming, a certain amount of tourism and the sale of its high-quality craft products (embroidery, carved furniture, pottery and copperware).

Homer tells us that Thetis disguised her son Achilles as a girl on Skyros in an attempt to prevent him from fighting in the Trojan War.
Traces of Neolithic occupation (5th millennium BCE) have been found northeast of the Venetian Kastro. In the 2nd millennium BCE Carian and Pelasgian farmers and seafarers settled on Skyros, then known as Pelasgia. In the 1st millennium BCE they were displaced by Dolopians (a Dorian people), who made the island, now called Dolopia, a base for plundering raids in the Aegean. In 469 BCE Athens drove out the pirates and settled farmers from Attica on the land. In Roman times the islanders achieved a modest prosperity through the export of their much-sought-after variegated marble, but their remote island remained of no political importance.
Skyros was reunited with Greece after 1821.