Which one is better - France Rail Pass, or the SNCF card?

Question

I am planning to travel to France this summer, and I'm going through the rail ticket options. I found 2 interesting options:

1. www.raileurope.com, providing a France pass which gives 3 days of unlimited travel within France

2. www.voyages-sncf.com, providing a rail card, with discounts of 25%, and up to 50% in non-peak hours.

I am eligible for the 18-25 Youth pass, and I plan to travel from Paris to Provence, and within Provence. Which one would be cheaper?

Answer 1

When I was living in France I had a carte 12-25 (youth card) from the SNCF since I made trips across France during the holidays.    I think this pass is a good option because it's valid for a full year and you can use it as much as you want in that period of time (summer for you).  You aren't going to want to take the train that much in a couple concentrated days as riding the train  takes up a good junk of your day and zaps your energy.  

I think once you use up the days from the raileurope pass it will be more of a pain to travel whereas each trip is cheaper and therefore you may to travel more with the carte 12-25.

your best bet though if you want to be sure you're making the right economical decision is to write out the exact trips you want to do and then what trips are optional and do a cost benefit analysis of each :-)