Adoption tours go far off the path of tourism

Andrea Laarman left Pandharpur, India, as a 16-month-old orphan.

She returned this year as an 18-year-old Grand Rapids, Mich., high-school student — and was welcomed back to her birth city by three days of local newspaper headlines.

"I met a woman who wasn't my grandma but was like my grandma, and she was hugging me," says Andrea, whose Indian name is Sneha. "I always sort of wanted to go back, and once I did, it was so worth it."

How did she get there? She took an adoption vacation.

Run by the Wisconsin-based company Adoptive Family Travel, the trips actually are called "Travel Experiences for Families with Internationally Born Children," which founder Becca Piper simply calls "Ties."

Her company, which focuses solely on adoption vacations, organizes the trip and all logistics, including visits to places far off the beaten path of tourism.

With nearly 22,000 foreign adoptions last year, up from fewer than 15,000 in 1999, more and more families are potential candidates for this kind of trip. China, Russia and Guatemala are the top three countries for foreign adoptions, according to U.S. State Department 2004 figures, followed by South Korea, Kazakstan, Ukraine and India.

Andrea, her family and their group of Americans visited India's tourist sights such as the Taj Mahal, yes. But they also split up with individual guides to visit villages, schools and orphanages special to their stories. Andrea's orphanage was a five-hour trip by car, and when they arrived, they were shocked to be presented with roses and greeted by 400 children.

Gwen Laarman, Andrea's mother, figures their family of five spent $5,000 each for the 2 ½-week trip, including hotels, documents, souvenirs, flights and travel inside India. One of Andrea's sisters, Hilary, 16, is also adopted from India.

"It was worth any amount of money we had to pay. We would never have been able to navigate the trip on our own, not even close," Gwen Laarman says. "Now we all just have such an appreciation of the gift of our kids and the beauty of their culture."

One side benefit? Andrea stays in touch with other Indian-born American teens who were on the trip.

"Us kids could all relate to each other," she says. "We fit into the culture, but we don't. We have the look of one country and the talk and personality of another."

How do adoption vacations work? Because of the emotional issues involved, planning is different from other types of vacations, Piper says. I caught up with her between trips to ask:

Q: What is an adoption vacation?

A: It's not really a vacation; you're not going to Disney World. The purpose of it is for kids to be in touch with the foundation of their identity. While we do sightseeing and visit spectacular places, I consider it to be secondary to the overall purpose. Sometimes people say, "We want to do a trip and solve all our problems." The reality is, it may open more boxes than it closes.

Q: Who participates, and what is the best age for children to go?

A: We don't have an age limit in either direction. It's really about whether you have kids who are flexible, who are not totally ruffled by traveling. We travel with lots of kids who are as young as 8 years old. China and Guatemala tend to run young; India has older children.

Q: What is your group size, cost and how fast do trips fill up?

A: It depends on country. Usually the maximum number is 35. Most trips are booked a year in advance. They cost $3,000 to $3,500 per person, depending on the country. India is more expensive.

Q: How hard is it for families to do these trips on their own?

A: There are families who do it on their own, but for the kids, to have community of other kids who are growing up in the same situation is just an irreplaceable experience. Most people on our trips say they are not group people, but a group is the right thing for this type of a trip.

Q: Do kids ever meet their birth parents?

A: In China, it's not happening, and in India it's not happening. You read about it, almost to the point where people think that it happens a lot. In reality, it's more like 5 percent. In most countries we can find foster moms or primary caregivers. If you can get a kid to be able to meet someone or visit someplace where they were when they were pre-adoptive, it's huge. Some kids meet their birth parents.

Q: How did you get involved in this business?

A: I am an adoptive parent myself, of two boys, and I had worked as an international [adoption] escort for years, so I knew the emotional issues involved. We started the organization 14 years ago and had our first trip 11 years ago.