diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 2be4b38eb..6e106290a 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -35,7 +35,8 @@ python -m pip install 'pystac[orjson]'
 ```
 
 If you would like to use a custom `RetryStacIO` class for automatically retrying
-network requests when reading with PySTAC, you'll need
+network requests when reading with PySTAC, or if you have non-ASCII characters in
+your urls you'll need
 [`urllib3`](https://urllib3.readthedocs.io/en/stable/):
 
 ```shell
diff --git a/pystac/stac_io.py b/pystac/stac_io.py
index fa71dd7c0..4da8aec2e 100644
--- a/pystac/stac_io.py
+++ b/pystac/stac_io.py
@@ -286,8 +286,9 @@ def read_text_from_href(self, href: str) -> str:
         """Reads file as a UTF-8 string.
 
         If ``href`` has a "scheme" (e.g. if it starts with "https://") then this will
-        use :func:`urllib.request.urlopen` to open the file and read the contents;
-        otherwise, :func:`open` will be used to open a local file.
+        use :func:`urllib.request.urlopen` (or func:`urllib3.request` if available)
+        to open the file and read the contents; otherwise, :func:`open` will be used
+        to open a local file.
 
         Args:
 
@@ -297,9 +298,19 @@ def read_text_from_href(self, href: str) -> str:
         if _is_url(href):
             try:
                 logger.debug(f"GET {href} Headers: {self.headers}")
-                req = Request(href, headers=self.headers)
-                with urlopen(req) as f:
-                    href_contents = f.read().decode("utf-8")
+                if HAS_URLLIB3:
+                    with urllib3.request(
+                        "GET",
+                        href,
+                        headers=self.headers,
+                        preload_content=False,  # type: ignore
+                    ) as f:
+                        href_contents = f.read().decode("utf-8")
+                else:
+                    req = Request(href, headers=self.headers)
+                    with urlopen(req) as f:
+                        href_contents = f.read().decode("utf-8")
+
             except HTTPError as e:
                 raise Exception(f"Could not read uri {href}") from e
         else: