diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index b24d746c..78098c22 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -3,6 +3,10 @@ python:
  - "2.7"
 virtualenv:
   system_site_packages: true
+branches:
+  except:
+    # skip version tags
+    /^\d+\.\d+(\.\d+)$/
 install:
  - "sudo apt-get update"
  - "sudo apt-get --no-install-recommends install python-numpy python-scipy python-matplotlib libhdf5-serial-dev gfortran"