Adoptee Homeland Tour participants: NCRC visits may not be guaranteed on all tours — or for all tour participants.

Please be advised that I have recently learned that NOT everyone was able to visit NCRC during a recent popular annual Adoptee Homeland Tour to Korea. This is unfortunately a direct result of the fact that NCRC has just ONE meeting room for file reviews with Adoptees at NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do where all former Korean Adoption Agency files are currently stored, and currently meets with Adoptees just 3 times per day / 3 days per week. This means that just 9 Adoptees per week can VIEW their former Korean Adoption Agency file at NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do. For IN-PERSON NCRC visits, VIEWING the file is a pre-requisite for obtaining a COPY of an Adoptee’s file at NCRC’s Main Office in Seoul. This presumes that an Adoptee can even successfully create an account on the KAS website through which Adoptees must FIRST submit a Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure request BEFORE booking a reservation at either of NCRC’s two locations. The KAS website has been riddled with problems for YEARS, which NCRC never fixes.

Unlike in the past, when Adoptees on Homeland Tours could visit their individual Korean Adoption Agencies for a file review, now that all former Korean Adoption Agency files have moved to NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do where there is just ONE meeting room for Adoptees, Adoptees are stuck with the possibility of NOT being able to visit NCRC to view their Korean Adoption Agency file. This is because NCRC can only meet with a limited number of Adoptees per week. So when there is a big Homeland Tour with dozens of Adoptees in Korea at the same time, or when there is a big Adoptee conference going on, or when it is basically Summer — NCRC’s limited appointment times are going to be hard to get.

For in person visits to NCRC in Korea, visiting NCRC’s Temporary Storage Facility in Goyang, Gyeonggi-do to VIEW an Adoptee’s file is a PRE-REQUISITE for obtaining a COPY of an Adoptee’s file at NCRC’s Main Office in Seoul.

(Those who do NOT intend to visit Korea in person, and who submit a Petition for Adoption Information Disclosure request purely online through the KAS site face 5-8 month long response times from NCRC for fulfillment of their requests).

Large Adoptee tours with many Adoptee participants all visiting Korea at the SAME TIME are going to have problems booking appointments with NCRC due to NCRC's limited meeting slots and the tight schedules of most Adoptee tours.

Also, Adoptee conferences which bring a large number of Adoptees into town will also clog up NCRC’s limited bookings. Essentially it is impossible to 100% accurately predict when NCRC will be slammed by Adoptee requests for in-person visits. Adoptees must also factor in Korean holidays, during which NCRC will also be closed.

This is a critically important point for any Adoptee considering an Adoptee Tour or planning a trip to Korea for a birth family search, regardless of whether they participate in a Homeland Tour: you are NOT guaranteed a visit to NCRC during your trip, and therefore you are NOT guaranteed the opportunity to view or obtain your adoption file while you are there.

I strongly advise that anyone who plans to visit Korea for a first time birth family search consult with me at least 4 months prior to their trip to Korea. I have talked to several Adoptees who went to Korea recently and who struck out with the NCRC process — failed to visit NCRC and obtain information — because they did not understand how complicated the process would be. While I have shared information freely to Paperslip for years, in my experience, people don't read and the process is too complex and overwhelming for Adoptees to navigate without assistance.

This is why I have offered paid consultations for the past few years, to spare Adoptees' the possibility of wasting an expensive trip and not receiving any information.

Please see:

NEW! Advisory Sessions - For Both KSS and Non-KSS Adoptees

For information about Homeland Tours for Korean Adoptees, please see:

Korean Adoptee Resources - MAIN.