diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 25e5b3daa9096..9741180e5e601 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@
 - [#1336](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/1336): Fixed incorrect prometheus metrics source selection.
 - [#1112](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/1112): Set default Zookeeper chroot to empty string.
 - [#1335](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/issues/1335): Fix overall ping timeout to be calculated based on per-ping timeout.
+- [#1374](https://github.com/influxdata/telegraf/pull/1374): Change "default" retention policy to "".
 
 ## v1.0 beta 1 [2016-06-07]
 
diff --git a/etc/telegraf.conf b/etc/telegraf.conf
index 8192bd12e5666..45856fb7787b4 100644
--- a/etc/telegraf.conf
+++ b/etc/telegraf.conf
@@ -81,8 +81,8 @@
   ## The target database for metrics (telegraf will create it if not exists).
   database = "telegraf" # required
 
-  ## Retention policy to write to.
-  retention_policy = "default"
+  ## Retention policy to write to. Empty string writes to the default rp.
+  retention_policy = ""
   ## Write consistency (clusters only), can be: "any", "one", "quorom", "all"
   write_consistency = "any"
 
diff --git a/plugins/outputs/influxdb/influxdb.go b/plugins/outputs/influxdb/influxdb.go
index d2c0523c709af..2b9fd101cbb85 100644
--- a/plugins/outputs/influxdb/influxdb.go
+++ b/plugins/outputs/influxdb/influxdb.go
@@ -53,8 +53,8 @@ var sampleConfig = `
   ## The target database for metrics (telegraf will create it if not exists).
   database = "telegraf" # required
 
-  ## Retention policy to write to.
-  retention_policy = "default"
+  ## Retention policy to write to. Empty string writes to the default rp.
+  retention_policy = ""
   ## Write consistency (clusters only), can be: "any", "one", "quorom", "all"
   write_consistency = "any"