Most internships in Software Engineering are paid these days anyway (I wouldn't ever accept an unpaid one). It's probably a good area in which to look.

It is just as hard anywhere you go. I moved to Silicon Valley 3 years ago with no college degree (I was still in school) and it took me 1 and 1/2 years to find a job.

Obviously being here helps but it is just as hard anywhere you go. Going to college is going to be your best option.

Moving to a major city won't hurt either.

If there is no work, then why are you worried about getting a job? It's impossible. You might as well give up now.

Just put yourself up on elance / rent-a-coder, use that to build a portfolio.

I wouldn't do elance or rent-a-coder for a few reasons:

Firstly, you might not be creating stuff that you will want to put on your resume/portfolio (my experience from that world is clients who want hacks and weird specs).

You will also find that going rates are pretty low because you are competing with off-shore labour (this is not a rant against off-shore, just an observation that this is how common markets work)

I have done freelance work through oDesk and the longer projects were quite valuable. Rates are low but not that low. According to oDesk's stats, the average rate for a web developer is about $16/hr.

$16/hr for a developer is super low.

I guess you can't compare remote to local SF, but $100-$125/hr is a good rate for devs here.