Go Experience McDonald’s While Abroad

I highly recommend everyone to go experience McDonald’s while abroad traveling. You may think I’m crazy to making such statement and it maybe frown upon from other travelers. DO NOT FEEL THIS WAY. First off, eat wherever you feel like eating and don’t care about what other people think. There is a stigma going on that because someone eats a popular chain restaurant, even for one meal out of their entire trip, the person is considered lazy and an embarrassment to all travelers. Here I will explain some good reasons why you shouldn’t feel guilty and why you should try a McDonald’s in another foreign country.

McDonald’s food varies a lot by location

You may think that whatever menu items you know back in your home city will be at the McDonald’s of your vacationing country. That is simply not true even McDonald’s within the same country has food menus unique to a specific location. For example, in Hawaii McDonald’s breakfast is served with Portuguese sausage, SPAM, eggs and rice. For dessert, you can get a delicious taro or coconut flavored pie instead of the common apple pie found in other states.

When you go into another country, things get much more interesting. Speaking of Hawaii, in Japan there is a set of burgers with Hawaiian theme flavors that is only found in Japan.

Japanese McDonald’s is known to have burgers made from shrimp as an option instead of the common beef patties!

In Spain, I found that McDonald’s there can get another level of fanciness with a full legit McCafe bar and good quality Macaroon and other pastries. Below shows a photo of my experience in a McDonald’s in Barcelona Spain. I was very surprised to see a wide variety of Macaroon at an affordable McDonald’s like price.

Last example was in Singapore and Malaysia and what I noticed differently in their McDonald’s. I noticed that hot sauce is very common instead of ketchup like in most places in the world. On their burgers and with their fries, McDonald’s provides customers with all the hot sauce they want. Also, less pork items on the menu due to the Muslim population.

McDonald’s while abroad have open Wi-Fi

Another reasons why you shouldn’t feel guilty to going to a McDonald’s on your trip is that you can use their free Wi-Fi to catch up on some work or just browse your favor travel blog or YouTube channel. Sometime on your trip, the cellular Wi-Fi can get spotty and a McDonald’s could be an option to search for new ideas or purchase tickets when cellular Wi-Fi signal gets undesirable.

Finding Wi-Fi in a foreign country can be a real pain in the ass but fear not, go to the nearest McDonald’s and connect to their open network. Remember to always use VPN when connecting to any public Wi-Fi hotspots!

McDonald’s are known to have toilets (restroom/WC)

In some places of the world or within your own country, there might be a lack of public toilets or the toilets are very dirty. For McDonald’s in my experience, the toilets tend to be above average for cleanliness and tend to have multiple stalls. I’m adding this to the benefits of eating at a McDonald’s on your trip because enjoying your meal and not worrying about finding a toilet or the cleanliness of the restaurant’s toilet is an indescribable feeling.

McDonald’s are great option to save money while traveling

Nobody knows how you are doing financially before and after your trip. Sometimes we need to cut down on spending and an easy way to do it is through cutting our food cost. McDonald’s aren’t the healthiest food options, and I don’t recommend eating here daily but occasionally, it can be used as a way to lower spending cost. Maybe the day before you went on a spectacular private tour in a village in Peru and even through it was worth even penny, it was expensive. To keep within your planned budget, you can have a meal at McDonald’s.

Don’t feel guilty at eating at a McDonald’s overseas

While I highly recommend eating local foods and keep trying new dishes (life is about experience yeah?), I don’t condemn people eating at a McDonald’s during their trip. As stated, there are many benefits that people overlooked when they criticize people eating at McDonald’s. As long as you focus on yourself enjoying life and remember the points I made in this post, go ahead and eat up!