I'm not in the US. I'm in Brazil. You cannot go into a reputable store here and find other players. Perhaps if you are really determined to buy non-Apple and are willing to spend a couple of hours looking you might find something but probably it will be no more than a memory stick that can play mp3s.

You might go to on street vendors who import a variety of cheap and mostly low quality iPod clones directly from Hong Kong.

I don't remember it being very different in Australia and a couple of European countries I've been to, but I might have been blinded by my fanboyism. :-)