diff --git a/speedtest_cli.py b/speedtest_cli.py
index 5d6e19b..079d210 100755
--- a/speedtest_cli.py
+++ b/speedtest_cli.py
@@ -463,8 +463,14 @@ def speedtest():
                 line = ('%(id)4s) %(sponsor)s (%(name)s, %(country)s) '
                         '[%(d)0.2f km]' % server)
                 serverList.append(line)
+            # Python 2.7 and newer seem to be ok with the resultant encoding
+            # from parsing the XML, but older versions have some issues.
+            # This block should detect whether we need to encode or not
             try:
+                unicode()
                 print_('\n'.join(serverList).encode('utf-8', 'ignore'))
+            except NameError:
+                print_('\n'.join(serverList))
             except IOError:
                 pass
             sys.exit(0)
@@ -518,8 +524,16 @@ def speedtest():
         best = getBestServer(servers)
 
     if not args.simple:
-        print_('Hosted by %(sponsor)s (%(name)s) [%(d)0.2f km]: '
-               '%(latency)s ms' % best)
+        # Python 2.7 and newer seem to be ok with the resultant encoding
+        # from parsing the XML, but older versions have some issues.
+        # This block should detect whether we need to encode or not
+        try:
+            unicode()
+            print_(('Hosted by %(sponsor)s (%(name)s) [%(d)0.2f km]: '
+                   '%(latency)s ms' % best).encode('utf-8', 'ignore'))
+        except NameError:
+            print_('Hosted by %(sponsor)s (%(name)s) [%(d)0.2f km]: '
+                   '%(latency)s ms' % best)
     else:
         print_('Ping: %(latency)s ms' % best)