Man, that is a broad question. The fact you are willing to travel anywhere suggests righand, no?
I would find a shop that does xray pipe such as CO2 recovery skids or even compressor packages. Perfect your hand while we are in this downturn before sinking money in a rig you will find hard to put to work at this point.
When you land this job, take every weld as a personal challenge to be better than the last. From the root pass out, inspect, evaluate, and improve. School gets you rolling, but NOTHING beats experience! The competition is TOUGH!!
KEEP ON THAT TIG!! Stainless pipe creds will further your employability.
Pay will always vary. Depends on where you are and the skill level involved. As well as the number of hands calling a given number seeking employment.

I think this question calls for the advice of the WORLD"S BEST PIPEWELDER AND HIS SIDEKICK. okwelder82 and DONKEY PUNCH. Maybe they will grace you with an answer. Not really, Listen to Rick.

whatever you do dont buy a 2wd rig truck if you do decided to become a righand yourbetter off with  a 1985 4x4 than a 2009 2wd makes you look like an idiot  you cant get anywhere and you need to get everywhere  also acording to alot of people on here you shoud start as a helper thats a huge waste of time you learn nothing about welding pipe being a helper other than how  to buff the weld if you wanna weld pipe PRACTICE then go get a job .  now if you wanna know how to be a good littel helper there is a good one on here named  cactus he can show you how to buff a weld          

Mike,
You did not mention stick welding, just mig and tig. If you don't have that skill, get it ASAP. That is the most widely used process in pipe welding. But the more processes you are qualified in the more options you have obviously.

Just a few suggestions; if you can get on with a good mechanical contractor you can get lots of experience with CHW, HW, steam and condensate pipe. Mostly 6010/7018 uphill.
Some companies prefab in their shop with GMAW/FCAW. Normally it only gets visual and hydro tested so it is a good place to get experience to possibly lead to other opportunities.

Paper mills, power boilers and nuclear plants have periodic outages that can keep you busy. They usually work lots of hours, pay per Diem and are of short duration so you will travel alot. Disadvantages are you may starve between outages if you are not connected and miss opportunities. It is a good place to network. Make friends and get numbers. You really have to work the system to stay busy. It's not for everybody. Lots of uncertainty.

New construction. If the current leaders will admit the hoax of "global warming" there will be lots of new construction on boilers and nuclear plants that will have tremendous amounts of tube and pipe work. I think many nuclear plants will be built the near future. Most pipe welds in nuke and boilers are with GTAW and SMAW.

Oil and natural gas pipe work was booming and now is really slow so I suggest looking elsewhere for now.

The pay as Rick said will vary greatly. The low end would be about 15/hr and the high end would be 25/hr. Now if you get in the right field with the right company and have the right skills you and make 30/40/hr. But realistically, just getting into pipe welding, I wouldn't expect more that low twenties.

Mike,
Now days most companies want a welder with experience. Some of the best experience for a young welder is maintenance. Most seasoned welders don't want a maintenence job so they are easier to get by an inexperienced hand. This way you can hone your skills in a place where you are not "under the gun" so to speak. Practice is the key. As far as pay, maybe one of the guys on this forum can tell you that.
                                             RJS