Anyone know why nothing is said about the ability of the ipad to sync

I had the same question. Here's the answer from the Apple iPad microsite:

Everything comes together.

You have an iPad, a computer, and an iPhone or iPod touch. How do you keep all your calendars straight? It’s easy in iTunes. Connect your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch to your computer, and iTunes can sync every meeting, event, birthday, appointment, and reminder in every calendar application you use: iCal, MobileMe, Google, Microsoft Outlook, AOL, and more. MobileMe syncs everything, too — and it all happens wirelessly and automatically.*

Next I'm searching to see how it handles email. I'd love it to sync between iPad and my iMac, unlike the lack of sync between iPhone and iMac.

Sync can be done 3 ways. 1) Connect to your computer and use iTunes to sync calendars etc. 2) buy a MobileMe account and use Apple's cloud to sync between computer, iPhone, and iPad. 3) 3rd party software exists to emulate Apple sync to perform the same sync without MobileMe

Mail synchs automatically between devices if you have an IMAP account (such as MobileMe).

I want to travel w/ my iPad and my iPhone leaving my MacBook Pro at home. While gone, I want to keep the iPad and iPhone in sync w/ each other. This is not a problem w/ GMail but will be a problem w/ AddressBook and ICal. AddressBook can only be synched manually from the computer and I hear that there are problems synching with Google Calendars (also I have multiple Coogle Calendars).

I don't want to use MobileMe unless I absolutely have to. Therefore what are are some of the alternative 3rd party solutions?

Thanks,
Ina

Your scenario requires MM. The third party programs assume your at your computer. Look for MM deals on eBay or amazon. With several devices it begins to make big sense.

if you use gmail, use the microsoft exchange option to sync calndr and contcts.