Propane and other gas cartridge stoves are convenient and easy to use, but you can't always count on finding the right cartridge. The cost of the cartridges adds up, I hate wondering how much gas is left in the cartridge, and throwing away all those empty cartridges feels wasteful to me.

White gas (Coleman fuel) stoves put out a lot of heat, you can buy gallon cans of the stuff pretty cheap, and you can use unleaded auto fuel in a pinch. MSR warns that their stoves won't last as long if you run them on auto fuel, but lots of people do it anyway. The MSR Dragonfly simmers well and puts out a lot of heat when you crank it up. It can also run on unleaded, kerosene and diesel. The drawbacks to the Dragonfly are weight, cost, bulk and noise. The Whisperlite Internationale is smaller, lighter, cheaper and quieter, but forget simmering. MSR has been making stoves for 40 years or so, they know what they're doing.

Alcohol stoves are easiest of all to use, you can make one from a pop can or buy one of the Trangia models. Trangia makes cooksets with windscreens and pot supports to fit their stoves, which speeds up cooking and saves fuel and spilled food. Trangias have a cap so you can keep fuel in them while you're traveling, unlike pop can stoves. You can get alcohol at hardware stoves or buy HEET (fuel line de-icer) in gas stations.

Lots of people end up trying different kinds of stoves and fuels through the years. I've tried gas cartridges, white gas and alcohol over the years. I've pretty well settled on alcohol (Trangia cookset) for warm weather stuff like cycle touring, white gas for high altitude backpacking and climbing, and bulk propane for car camping.