Interestingly, in studies tourists actually do not prefer the food from McDonalds over local cuisine in almost every market studied. What they did prefer was the consistency: knowing what they are going to get.
I prefer McDonalds when abroad mostly because of their ordering machines. It's a big advantage if you travel to a non-English speaking country. I was able to order food without friction in Estonia, Finland, Italy, without speaking any of their languages.
People there will be happy to try to speak English to you if you let them. I don't speak Italian, Finnish, or Estonian for that matter, but I've been there and I have never had a problem communicating with people in the hospitality industry.
McDonalds is only "home" for Americans. As the parent comment says, it's "consistent", but it's absolutely not "home" for me or anyone else I know from Europe. And for anyone who has tried McDonalds on a few different continents, it's not even that "consistent" in what you can expect, I think people are more interested in the consistency of safety, i.e. you have a lower risk of being food poisoned than you may have from some of the other establishments nearby.
