It really depends a lot on your age. If you're travelling to Europe and are under 30 you can easily apply for a 2 year working visa and I believe getting a job in a bar, cafe etc. is really quite easy (a lot of people I know have simply walked in to venues and asked for a job). Rent can be very expensive so I suggest looking online for share houses where you can split the rent.
I'm not really sure about living/working in the states though.
If you specialise in IT I'd recommend looking at websites such as weworkremotely.com which is similar to seek but for jobs that are solely online, so really you can work anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection. There are a few sites out there like that so just have a search on google and see what you can find.
