By road
Kolhapur lies on National Highway 4 a.k.a NH4 which connects Mumbai to Bangalore. Mumbai to Kolhapur is a 8 hours drive by road. Pune to Kolhapur is around 3 hours journey by private car, while bus takes around 4 hours. The road is excellent and almost like Pune-Mumbai express highway.
MSRTC Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation has buses running every 30 minutes from Pune to Kolhapur and vice versa. These are A/C, Non-A/C general transport buses and cost approximately Rs. 220 for Non A/C & 360 for A/C. There are also hourly buses from Mumbai, which are non-A/C general transport buses and cost approximately 180-240 INR.
Private operators also operate buses on this route with A/C and Non-A/C option, the fare ranging from 200 to 350 INR.
Similar Options are available from Pune. The Private/State Buses and shared Taxis , all start from Swar-Gate in Pune which is a large bus/transport hub to the south of Pune.
From south side, there are direct buses private and state-owned from almost all places from Karnataka, including Bengalore, Belgaon, Mengalore, Hubali etc.
By train
Kolhapur is on the Pune-Miraj-Kolhapur section of the Central Railway. The railway station is named after Chatrapati Shahu Maharaj. It is well connected with all the important cities in India. Mahalakshmi, Koyna and Sahyadri express connect Mumbai to Kolhapur and they run daily. Miraj is the nearmost major railway station and is well connected to important cities in india. From Kolhapur Railway Station, there are daily trains for Mumbai, Nagpur, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Tirupati, while weekly trains also run for Delhi, Ahmedabad and Dhanbad.
By plane
Kingfisher airlines has a daily flight around 9 am from Mumbai which cost around 3000 INR.