diff --git a/CHANGELOG.rst b/CHANGELOG.rst
index 0618c193..32e17514 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.rst
+++ b/CHANGELOG.rst
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ This project adheres to `Semantic Versioning <http://semver.org/>`_.
 `2.0.0-dev`_ (unreleased)
 -------------------------
 * Removed Python 2.7 support (`EOL Jan 2020 <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0373/>`_).
+* Removed the default 30-second connection ``--timeout`` limit.
 * Removed Python’s default limit of 100 response headers.
 * Added ``--max-headers`` to allow setting the max header limit.
 
diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 91bfc343..32c887e7 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -1576,8 +1576,8 @@ expecting that the request body will be passed through.
 And since there's no data nor ``EOF``, it will be stuck. So unless you're
 piping some data to HTTPie, this flag should be used in scripts.
 
-Also, it might be good to override the default ``30`` second ``--timeout`` to
-something that suits you.
+Also, it might be good to set a connection ``--timeout`` limit to prevent
+your program from hanging if the server never responds.
 
 
 
diff --git a/httpie/cli.py b/httpie/cli.py
index 96a701fe..87035120 100644
--- a/httpie/cli.py
+++ b/httpie/cli.py
@@ -526,11 +526,15 @@ network.add_argument(
 network.add_argument(
     '--timeout',
     type=float,
-    default=30,
+    default=0,
     metavar='SECONDS',
     help="""
-    The connection timeout of the request in seconds. The default value is
-    30 seconds.
+    The connection timeout of the request in seconds. 
+    The default value is 0, i.e., there is no timeout limit.
+    This is not a time limit on the entire response download;
+    rather, an error is reported if the server has not issued a response for 
+    timeout seconds (more precisely, if no bytes have been received on
+    the underlying socket for timeout seconds). 
 
     """
 )