Spreading out your early cities in that way can be risky, because of the strain on your economy. I would only do it if I was going to be switching to City States anyway, and soon. Aristocracy would also alleviate the economic pressure of being spread out, but Code of Laws comes too late to help when you're talking about putting your 2nd and 3rd cities that far out. Although, if you have a very high-commerce start location you might be able to afford the city maintenance and still keep up in tech even without switching to City States. The key to success would be recognizing how much of an impact on your economy your next city will have, and not building that one city that will be one city too many before you can switch to a better civic.
If you can make it work, and you have enough culture output to keep the AI from walking settlers into "your" territory and filling in your gaps, then this sort of tactic can be a good way to stake out a larger empire for yourself, which can be important if you are in a position where the AI is likely to take up the area available to you before you can get "your share".
