diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 9325de32..dda55455 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@ before_install:
     - sudo apt-get update
 
     - travis_retry pip install wheel flake8 coveralls nose
+    - travis_retry pip uninstall numpy
 
     # on Python 2.7, use the system versions of numpy, scipy, and matplotlib
     # and the minimum version of cython and networkx