At the camps I went to and worked at, trips were the foundation of the program. Nine-year-olds went on three-day hiking trips along the Appalachian Trail. Twelve-year-olds went on four-day canoe trips down the Rappahannock River. Fifteen-year-olds went on three-week expeditions in the mountains and valleys of southwestern Virginia.

Until recently, I didn’t realize how rare this was. To me, it was just camp.

But a few years ago, when I was the one responsible for these camps, I couldn’t stop asking a question I probably should have settled long before: “Wait, why do we do trips?”

Trips are hard to do safely and harder to do well. Staff must be trained to a higher standard, logistics get much more complicated, emergency planning has to be thorough, and everyone needs a great deal more gear. Campers and staff are exposed to wild summer weather. Many kids genuinely don’t like the idea of sleeping three nights under a tarp, and I know we lost families who would have otherwise loved the camp because of this. Trips cost a lot. They require a lot.

So, I kept asking: “Why do we do them? Should we keep doing them? Are they worth it?”

While I wrestled with that question, memories kept popping up. Being cheered on while rock climbing for the first time in Shenandoah National Park when I was nine. Singing songs and playing cards under a tarp during a rainstorm when I was 12. Watching two campers simultaneously navigate conflict and rapids while canoeing down the James River when I was 17.

But I kept returning to one memory in particular: After a long and glorious day of hiking on the Appalachian Trail — including lunch at the breathtaking summit of McAfee Knob — the group of 15-year-olds that I was responsible for was making camp when everything suddenly went wrong. Some campers argued over how best to cook dinner and who should do what. Others argued over where to set up the tarps. A few were lying down and chatting, which annoyed everyone else. I stood at the edge of the campsite waiting for the right moment to step in. But it never came. One camper took a deep breath and suggested a compromise for the tarps. Another made a joke about someone’s terrible cooking skills that shouldn’t have worked but did. Before I knew it, dinner was made, the tarps were up, and everyone was happy again.

At the time, I filed this away as just another “nice moment” and went back to planning the next day’s logistics.

But something was happening there that took me embarrassingly long to see.

Grit and resilience have been popular terms for years now, and for good reason. They capture the real character strengths that all of us need to flourish. The problem is that they’re individualized concepts. In my experience — as a kid, as a counselor, as a teacher, as a parent — no one is resilient in isolation, and nobody develops grit on their own.

I had been asking what a trip does for a camper, but that was the wrong unit of measurement. Trips build exactly what individual resilience needs to develop: a group that holds together when tested. Trips don’t build resilient kids; they build resilient communities.

That’s what was happening at that campsite. The unique power of a trip — where you’re alone but together, tired and cold but doing something meaningful as a collective — is perfectly calibrated to build strong bonds and profound connections.

And then, week by week and year by year, campers go from simply belonging to a community to learning how to build it themselves. I can’t think of a more important skill to send a kid home with.

That’s why we did trips. That’s why they were worth it.

That, and the memories. As soon as we finished dinner that night — which was delicious, by the way — the sky opened up. The tarps held. Everyone squeezed in, and before we knew it, the singing and laughter could be heard for miles.

Brian Massey is the director of innovation for the American Camp Association.