diff --git a/geopandas/tests/test_geodataframe.py b/geopandas/tests/test_geodataframe.py
index bae5fce..affae3d 100644
--- a/geopandas/tests/test_geodataframe.py
+++ b/geopandas/tests/test_geodataframe.py
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ from shapely.geometry import Point, Polygon
 import fiona
 from geopandas import GeoDataFrame, read_file, GeoSeries
 from geopandas.tests.util import unittest, download_nybb, assert_geoseries_equal, \
-    connect, create_db, validate_boro_df, PANDAS_NEW_SQL_API
+    connect, create_db, validate_boro_df, PACKAGE_DIR, PANDAS_NEW_SQL_API
 
 
 class TestDataFrame(unittest.TestCase):
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ class TestDataFrame(unittest.TestCase):
         self.df2 = GeoDataFrame([
             {'geometry': Point(x, y), 'value1': x + y, 'value2': x * y}
             for x, y in zip(range(N), range(N))], crs=self.crs)
-        self.df3 = read_file('examples/null_geom.geojson')
+        self.df3 = read_file(os.path.join(PACKAGE_DIR, 'examples', 'null_geom.geojson'))
         self.line_paths = self.df3['Name']
 
     def tearDown(self):
diff --git a/geopandas/tests/util.py b/geopandas/tests/util.py
index 6503e2d..74c5878 100644
--- a/geopandas/tests/util.py
+++ b/geopandas/tests/util.py
@@ -5,6 +5,9 @@ from six.moves.urllib.request import urlopen
 
 from geopandas import GeoDataFrame, GeoSeries
 
+HERE = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
+PACKAGE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(HERE))
+
 # Compatibility layer for Python 2.6: try loading unittest2
 import sys
 if sys.version_info[:2] == (2, 6):
@@ -43,7 +46,7 @@ def download_nybb():
     # Data from http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/download/bytes/nybb_14aav.zip
     # saved as geopandas/examples/nybb_14aav.zip.
     filename = 'nybb_16a.zip'
-    full_path_name = os.path.join('examples', filename)
+    full_path_name = os.path.join(PACKAGE_DIR, 'examples', filename)
     if not os.path.exists(full_path_name):
         with io.open(full_path_name, 'wb') as f:
             response = urlopen('http://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/zip/data-maps/open-data/{0}'.format(filename))