caravannoun/ˈkæɹəvæn/

• 1

  A convoy or procession of travellers, their cargo and vehicles, and any pack animals, especially camels crossing a desert.

  • To the left the caravan animals, securely picketed, at regular distances of some fifteen yards apart, occupied an area of several acres.
  • “Would they could have foretold that my caravan would have been cut up by the Shinwaris almost within shadow of the Pass!” grunted the Eusufzai agent of a Rajputana trading-house whose goods had been feloniously diverted into the hands of other robbers just across the Border, and whose misfortunes were the laughing-stock of the bazar. “Ohé, priest, whence come you and whither do you go?”
• 2

  A furnished vehicle towed behind a car, etc., and used as a dwelling when stationary.

  • An Italian woman, twenty years of age, […] was travelling in a caravan with the baggage of the Duke of Wellington's army, in the middle of the night, in a violent storm, while she was fast asleep, a small monkey with a long chain upon the roof of the caravan took refuge in it […]
  • The caravans were the demarcation between the non-radioactive areas and the radioactive areas. There were two main caravans, one for people going into the forward area, and the other caravan was for people returning.
• 3

  A group of camels, especially when used as beasts of burden carrying people and merchandise.

  • Twice, however, we encountered a caravan of camels-about seventy strong in one instance, and about thirty in the other.
  • It was just about noon, and the mirage in the middle of the day quickly swallows up even a caravan of camels on the horizon, or they get hidden in a dip of the plain, and ours were now out of sight.

caravanverb/ˈkæɹəvæn/

• 1

  To travel in a caravan (procession).

  • The wedding party got in their cars and caravaned from the chapel to the reception hall.
  • The provisions of the Vehicle Code covering caravaning of vehicles have been clarified to expedite this type of operation and still result in the proper observance of the objectives of that law.
• 2

  To travel and/or live in a caravan (vehicle).

  • When my parents retired they really got back into caravanning.
  • 1932, Walter Meade, Caravanning, Cecil Charles Windsor Aldin, The Cecil Aldin Book, page 55, It has to be remembered that, however enchanting the idea of caravanning may be, it is unlikely that it will consist entirely of watching sunsets and other people working — two of the most fascinating sights I know — but there are, regrettably enough, other and less romantic elements.