The historian and writer James Truslow Adams coined the phrase “American Dream” in his 1931 book The Epic of America; he stated, “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement.”

The Digital Vagabond is someone I think who understands what Adams was saying. He’s someone who took the dream of meeting people and being mobile and turned it into reality. Now not everyone can go out, buy an RV, travel around the country and attend Burning Man but that’s ok. We all have the capacity to make our own American Dream into a reality because making our lives richer and fuller doesn’t have to come with a price tag.

My American Dream has followed a similar path but my journey is by water. I’m a kayaker and started a small community site called kayaktion, http://www.kayaktion.com. I started it after a trip I took to Vietnam in 2001. My friend told me to bring two items, Blowpops and a Polaroid. This seemed strange at first but then I quickly understood why. Vietnam is a very young country with 60% of its population being under 25 years of age. It soon dawned on me that the vast majority of this country wasn’t even alive during the Vietnam War or what they call the American War. The amount of kindness and curiosity they showed towards a past enemy was an eye opener to people’s capacity to circumvent politics and build bridges between one another.

I soon put those Blowpop’s and Polaroid’s to good use as we paddled from one floating village to another handing out candy and photos. We soon became the most popular people in the village and probably did more for American-Vietnamese relations than most politicians could ever hope.

Since 2001 I’ve been to 16 countries, I’ve been sponsoring a 14 year-old girl from Bangladesh and a 6 year-old boy from Peru and have helped build homes, schools and clinics in Asia. Meeting people from the far corners of the world and becoming amerced in new cultures is a rich and amazing experience. I couldn’t dream up some the experiences I’ve had and my life is richer and fuller because of it and I didn’t need an iPhone for any of it.

If you live to be 78 years old you’ll have had 28,470 days in this world, a metaphorical blink of an eye in the grand scheme of time. My hope is that someone will read this or James Truslow Adams and realize it’s not about stuff; it’s about the experiences you have and the impact you have on others that will make your American Dream a reality.