Korea is on our list, but I'll be honest - it's not at the top. For whatever reason, Korea limits the agencies you can use. Based on where we live, we have a choice of three agencies. I crossed one off the list pretty quickly. Of the two remaining, I'm not completely sold on either one. Both are good agencies. Both also have programs in China and Vietnam. I don't know though... I just haven't had this feeling of "oh yes - THIS is who I want to work with for our adoption."
South Korea's international adoption program has been in place since the end of the Korean war. It's been a very stable program, although I've heard rumors that it may slow the number of referrals until the program eventually closes. I don't know how accurate this is - just something I've read on multiple websites. Right now the wait time to adopt from Korea is increasing, and we're told it will likely continue to increase.
We would have the option of either traveling to Seoul to pick up our child or having the child brought to the US. The escort option is nice because we wouldn't have to worry about leaving M. here. But then, we'd miss out on the opportunity to see our child's native country. That's pretty important to us. If we did travel to pick up our child, it would be a very short trip. About three business days. In my humble opinion, that is not long enough to see the city or the country. And it's a LONG way to fly for just three days. The other factor with traveling is that we would not actually be able to take custody of the child until we're ready to leave. I'm not crazy about that. Cost-wise, there isn't much of a differential between going to Korea and having the child brought here.
We're keeping Korea on our list for now, but I don't think it's the right program for us.