The first step is the easiest and work similarly to any other workshop supported game where this is all you need to do.

Either open the game's workshop tab on TF2's Steam page or open the workshop directly ingame by Pressing SHIFT + TAB to activate the overlay and press the wrench icon.


After that you'll likely* be at the workshop main page, and can use the searchfield to look up any map you'll find interesting.

In this example im gonna use the Dead Center port/remake made by Katja.


To download a map, press the green, rectangular button that says "Subscribe" if you're english.
(Dont worry about the wording as it means you'll get the latest version of the map and the game wont fee you for it like most subscriptions)

While it downloads take a quick look to the top of the window to see the workshop URL.
You'll notice a bunch of random numbers after the "id=". Take a note of these as they will be important later on.














*Sometimes the new steam UI glitches out in the overlay and opens a random workshop page it saved when you closed the game instead of the main page like its supposed to. In that case just press the workshop tab again to get to the main page.

Now that it has downloaded, turn off the game & open the file explorer in your toolbar.
Go to "This PC" and press whatever drive you have Steam installed on.
Then navigate to Steam > Steamapps > Workshop > Content then press the folder with the name "440" (TF2's app id).
You'll notice that you're in a folder containing folders with a bunch of random numbers (or one folder assuming this is your first workshop map).



If you paid attention you'll notice these numbers are the same as the map id you saw in the workshop URL, if you took note of it, you can search for it in the searchfield to get the folder with the exact map you're looking for.

Click on it and inside you will find a BSP file with the same name as the map you subscribed to.
This is the map file itself that the game uses to render and play a map.

Leave it for now and go to your steam library and right click TF2 to open up a dropdown menu.

In said dropdown menu, press "Handle>Browse local files".

This will open up your TF2 game folder.
In it navigate to "tf>maps".
You'll now be in the game's inner map folder with the BSP files of all official maps (and all custom maps you gotten using this method).


Now have both windows open and simply click & drag your new workshop map over to the official map folder.
(drag the BSP file over from Steam>Steamapps>workshop>content>440
to
Steam>Steamapps>Common>Team Fortress 2>tf>Maps)

You're done!
Now boot up the game and you now notice the new map is in your maplist when you press
"Create server" in the main menu. Now you can load it either by selecting it in the list or by typing "map [mapnamehere]" in the console and pressing enter.



Note if you already downloaded the map by connecting to a community server it will have the additional prefix of UGC (User Generated Content).

If you dont mind not keeping the map and having longer loading screens you can also simply type the map id number from the URL in the developer console to temporairly load it on your own server.
To do this open the console and type "map workshop [mapidhere]"

If you want to take fewer steps or if the map isn't availiable on the workshop you can try getting it from TF2maps.net

Have fun exploring fresh custom maps!

This was made because i couln't find any workshop guide for new players who may be accustomed to the normally streamlined experience in Garrys Mod or other games.

Thus this probably won't be of help for more experienced players. That being said if you are a experienced player and know a better method or found this interesting please let me know.