  We state a new problem of \emph{itinerant routing} in elastic optical
networks, which we define as the establishment and reconfiguration of an
\emph{itinerant connection}. In an itinerant connection, one of the connection
end nodes is allowed to change. Itinerant routing could also be considered a
form of connection restoration, where a connection has to be restored to a
different end node. With the introduction of new mobile-network architectures,
the progressing integration of wireless and optical networks, the continuing
growth of wireless high-bitrate services, and the eventual deployment of
elastic optical networks, there is a need to support this itinerant routing in
the elastic optical networks. We present and discuss two major use cases of the
itinerant routing, and propose a \emph{novel reconfiguration algorithm}. Our
algorithm does not deteriorate the network performance, and requires half as
many new links to configure as the shortest-path reconfiguration algorithm. The
performance evaluation was carried out with 46800 simulation runs using
randomly-generated realistic transport networks.
