The best bet is to live in a small rural community, but that's so unhip these days!

And your advice assumes people even have debit cards. In my old day job I had to give an emergency check to a Katrina refugee because, although her welfare check went direct deposit, her financial institution was a small credit union underwater in downtown New Orleans. If she'd had an account in a large bank, and a debit card, she would have had cash available anywhere in country (except New Orleans of course).