diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 422693b..38b1428 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -1,11 +1,12 @@
+dist: xenial
 language: python
+sudo: required
 python:
   - "3.5"
   - "3.6"
 matrix:
   include:
     - python: "3.7"
-      dist: xenial
   allow_failures:
     - python: "3.7"
 services:
@@ -20,12 +21,14 @@ branches:
 before_install:
   - sudo apt-get update
   - sudo apt-get install python-dev python3-dev libmysqlclient-dev
+  - sudo cp $TRAVIS_BUILD_DIR/travis_test/mysql.cnf /etc/mysql/conf.d/
+  - sudo service mysql restart
 install:
   - pip install -r travis_test/requirements.txt
   - pip install python-coveralls 
   - pip install coverage codecov
 before_script:
-  - mysql -e 'CREATE DATABASE `djangoblog` /*!40100 DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 */;'
+  - mysql -e 'CREATE DATABASE `djangoblog` /*!40100 DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci */;'
   - python manage.py makemigrations
   - python manage.py migrate
   - python manage.py collectstatic --noinput
diff --git a/travis_test/mysql.cnf b/travis_test/mysql.cnf
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e6f1645
--- /dev/null
+++ b/travis_test/mysql.cnf
@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+[mysqld]
+character-set-server=utf8mb4
+collation-server=utf8mb4_unicode_ci
+
+[client]
+default-character-set = utf8mb4
+
+[mysql]
+default-character-set = utf8mb4
\ No newline at end of file