Why did you decide to set off on a tour with your brother, Micah?
My mother died in 1989, I lost my dad in 1996, my sister in 2000, and my son was diagnosed with various disabilities. I had started my career as a writer and there was an excessive amount of stress - I really hit the gas pedal on my career because I felt I was running out of time. From 1994 to 2000, I had written four books, but from 2000 to 2005 I wrote seven. I had to learn to slow down and relax and this trip gave me the opportunity to do that. My brother is the only person who has been through what I have and that's why my wife said he should go with me. At that point in our lives we really needed to spend some time together.

What did the trip involve?
We were away for three weeks with a company called TCS Expeditions. There were 80 of us on a private jet and we flew around the world on their 'Heaven and Earth' trip. I loved geography when I was a kid and I'd read about Easter Island when I was nine and knew the vast majority of the places on the trip fell into the 'maybe one day' category. We visited Ethiopia, Peru, Guatemala ... It was such a great way to see these places. While travelling, you can really slow yourself down and think about what kind of person you want to be and what's really important to you. It wasn't until I got to Rarotonga, almost a week into the trip, that I was able to relax for the first time in years.

How did you and Micah get on?
We're very close, best friends. We've travelled together before - we often go to Las Vegas or skiing at Lake Tahoe or rafting down the Colorado River. Micah's quite easy going and so am I - generally we were in sync with what we wanted to do. The extent of our differences was shown in Cambodia. Because it's so hot and humid in the middle of the day we'd gone back to the hotel for a few hours before heading out to Angkor Wat in the afternoon when it was cooler. Micah wanted to eat first, then go to the pool and then work out. I wanted to work out then go to the pool and then eat later. That was the extent of the difference! We got on better than many of the married couples on the trip.

Has the trip changed you?
I came back with a renewed dedication to slow things down and that has worked fairly well, and my life hasn't been as pressurised as it was before. That long trip was necessary for me to figure out who I wanted to be and what is most important in my life: my family.

You have five children. Are family holidays a bit stressful?
My wife and I have both vacations and family trips. We never confuse the two. You can't go on a family trip and think you're going to come back refreshed. That's where everyone goes wrong. You can have fun on both kinds of trip, but if you expect to take your kids to Disney World for four days and have a relaxing time you're fooling yourself. That's OK, though, if you know you're on a family trip, not a vacation. My wife and I took our vacation to Florida recently and next week we're going back to Florida on a family trip. I love a theme park as much as the kids do, but I'm not going to be sitting by the pool sipping pina coladas and staying out to midnight. I'll be watching the Disney cartoon channel in the hotel room and hauling kids around and standing in line. But I'm ready for that and I'm looking forward to it.

· Nicholas Sparks is the author of Three Weeks With My Brother (Time Warner Books), to be published on 26 May