diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
index 6c9c1adbc..7d96418c8 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -7,6 +7,11 @@
   with parametrization markers.
   Thanks to Markus Unterwaditzer for the PR.
 
+- fix issue710: introduce ALLOW_UNICODE doctest option: when enabled, the
+  ``u`` prefix is stripped from unicode strings in expected doctest output. This
+  allows doctests which use unicode to run in Python 2 and 3 unchanged.
+  Thanks Jason R. Coombs for the report and Bruno Oliveira for the PR.
+
 - parametrize now also generates meaningful test IDs for enum, regex and class
   objects (as opposed to class instances).
   Thanks to Florian Bruhin for the PR.
diff --git a/doc/en/doctest.rst b/doc/en/doctest.rst
index e33fed676..a456488e3 100644
--- a/doc/en/doctest.rst
+++ b/doc/en/doctest.rst
@@ -72,3 +72,18 @@ ignore lengthy exception stack traces you can just write::
     # content of pytest.ini
     [pytest]
     doctest_optionflags= NORMALIZE_WHITESPACE IGNORE_EXCEPTION_DETAIL
+
+
+py.test also introduces a new ``ALLOW_UNICODE`` option flag: when enabled, the
+``u`` prefix is stripped from unicode strings in expected doctest output. This
+allows doctests which use unicode to run in Python 2 and 3 unchanged.
+
+As with any other option flag, this flag can be enabled in ``pytest.ini`` using
+the ``doctest_optionflags`` ini option or by an inline comment in the doc test
+itself::
+
+    # content of example.rst
+    >>> get_unicode_greeting()  # doctest: +ALLOW_UNICODE
+    'Hello'
+
+