Originally Posted by
cyccommute
Not necessarily true in the US. The canisters are easy to find in Walmarts across the country. 10 years ago, this was true but within the last 5 years the availability of isobutane canisters hasn't been an issue in any town that had a Helmart (I hate 'em but damn...).
You have been saying that for a long time and I have disagreed repeatedly based on my experience of not finding canisters in Walmart or anywhere else in a large portion of the country. We went a long ways without finding them as recently as 2010. That year we didn't find them until day 19 of our tour.
That said, I recently did an online search of a bunch of the Walmarts across the country that we had previously struck out at and at least according to the Walmart store web site they had canisters in stock at most of them. I have been told that Walmart started carrying a canister stove and that was the reason for the wider availability of the canisters, but I do not know if that is true.
I am pretty happy with my pop can stove, but if I wasn't I might reconsider my abandoning of canister stoves.