In the new SBS Viceland TV series Gaycation, the Oscar-nominated actor Ellen Page and her BFF Ian Daniel go on a journey around the globe. But what could have just been a cute and entertaining experiment in celebrity travelogue TV quickly turns into an important look into an ever-evolving world for LGBTIQ people in 2017.

By shining a light onto the often hidden and/or dangerous worlds that queer people continue to live in, Page and Daniel make a defiant stand for something many of us may take for granted: the need for community among LGBTIQ people.

Whether it’s sending time in a squatting camp in Jamaica or touching down in Rio for Carnival, the show gives us an inside look into why and how these communities work. For many — particularly those who do not fit into traditional masculine and feminine archetypes, or those who have grown up around intolerance — these spaces are beacons of acceptance and tolerance. They’re places where queer people can live and exist as they are, and do so at least somewhat protected from a world that isn’t always on the same page of progress.

Sure, it’s amusing to see Page and her friend embrace the weird and the wacky, but digging beneath the surface in places like Jamaica, Japan, Brazil, and even the US — Page’s interaction with one-time presidential contender Ted Cruz at an Iowa State Fair went internationally viral — shows so much entrenched homophobia.

In the Jamaica episode, for example, it’s a camp for queer youth that acts as a brief respite from a country in which music superstars like Beenie Man use violently homophobic lyrics, or policemen are captured on camera admitting to killing gay people. It’s no wonder that LGBTIQ people — many hiding in plain sight — find anywhere they can to feel safe and, most significantly, themselves.

So What Would Happen If Gaycation Came To Australia?

As you watch Gaycation, it’s hard not to think about Australia’s fraught history with LGBTIQ rights. Australia may not appear to be a country whose relationship with the queer community is as extreme as some of the other countries depicted in the series, however this is also a country where great political cache is still held by those stoking the diminishing embers of ultra-conservatism and hard-to-shake religious doctrine.

This is a country that can celebrate LGBTIQ people across politics (Penny Wong, Bob Brown), pop culture (Wentworth, Benjamin Law, Adam Lambert as a judge on The X-Factor), music (Troye Sivan, Darren Hayes), and now even in sport (Ian Thorpe, Penny Cula-Reid and Mia-Rae Clifford). And yet most queer couples would likely still feel awkward holding hands — to say nothing of a kiss on the lips — walking down a busy street in the CBD.

This is a country where great political cache is still held by those stoking the diminishing embers of ultra-conservatism.

This is a country that broadcasts a live telecast of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras every year and turned the flamboyant Eurovision Song Contest into a national icon. We’re the country that gave the world the ABBA revival it desperately needed thanks to a movie about drag queens (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) and an outcast desperate to get married (Muriel’s Wedding). We gave the world gay icons Kylie Minogue and Peter Allen!

But where would Ellen and Ian visit if they came to Australia? Sadly, they’d probably head to North Queensland, where federal politician Bob Katter once declared there were no homosexuals in his electorate, and Liberal MP George Christensen waged a personal war against the shelved Safe Schools program. Then there’s Burnie on the north-west coast of Tasmania, where 50 percent of residents once considered homosexuality as morally wrong.

At the complete other end of the spectrum, Sydney’s Oxford Street and the progressive lockout-free suburb of Newtown seem like obvious places for a “gaycation”, but in other cities queer nightlife is evaporating rapidly. The unofficial home of drag in Melbourne, the Greyhound Hotel, shut its doors for good just this past January to, no doubt, make way for more cardboard apartments and bland cafés selling overpriced eggs and smashed avo. While major cities like Adelaide and Brisbane have scant few queer venues.

Compared to cities like New York, San Francisco, Berlin, and London, Australia is desperately missing thriving queer centres; places that feel uniquely and proudly ours and not just postcodes with a high number of Grindr app downloads. Then again, maybe the need for community has morphed into something new and different for a modern online era. Maybe a growing acceptance means we no longer need our own gay spaces to protect ourselves from the outside world.

Whatever the case, I’m still raising my hand to be Ellen and Ian’s tour guide.

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Glenn Dunks is a freelance film critic and culture writer from Melbourne. He is the author of three books and tweets too much at @glenndunks.

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To learn more about Ellen Page and Ian Daniel’s journey head to the Gaycation page on SBS on Demand.