diff --git a/tools/travis_setup.sh b/tools/travis_setup.sh
index 9ef667e7..6ab65da3 100755
--- a/tools/travis_setup.sh
+++ b/tools/travis_setup.sh
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 set -ex
 
 pip install wheel flake8 coveralls nose
+pip uninstall -y numpy
 
 # on Python 2.7, use the system versions of numpy, scipy, and matplotlib
 # and the minimum version of cython and networkx